The Secret Life Of Amelia Bones
by the bones family tree
Summary: But nothing about Amelia's life was normal. In fact, as lives go, hers was absolutely fucking crazy. It was probably more than that. But she had some sort of control on it. Well she did. Come her sixteenth birthday, and everything kind of blew into shit. ABANDONED
1. Introduction to Amelia

_AN: HELLOO!_  
_Firstly of all, thank you for taking the time to read my fanfiction!_  
_Secondly, I do NOT own anything, everything apart from the plot belongs to the amazing JK Rowling!_

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Amelia Bones had her life all planned out. Every detail, from her first kiss to her death. If life didn't go by her grand plan, for every possible twist and turn, she had some sort of alternative plan. And if she could, she'd find a way to make those alternative plans link back up to her grand plan, or she'd alter her grand plan to make to work with her situation. When she woke up in the morning, at exactly seven in the morning, she planned out the entire day in her head, and then went by her day at seven past seven. And when she went to bed her last conscious moments were spent planning out the next day. She'd discovered that if she had some sort of power, some sort of control over her life, it would be somewhat normal. But nothing about Amelia's life was normal. In fact, as lives go, hers was absolutely fucking crazy. It was probably more than that. But she had some sort of control on it. Well she did. Come her sixteenth birthday, and everything kind of blew into shit. But looking back, her life was kind of leading up to this grand moment, and the fall afterwards. Maybe she was like Sherlock Holmes and his Reichenbach Fall.

The chaos, she would say, started either when she was eight, after unfortunate circumstances at a muggle girl's birthday party, followed by setting fire to her school, or when she was eleven, when she was sent away to a school in the middle of nowhere, or when she was fourteen, when she became friends with several people drastically changed her life, or the morning she woke up on her sixteenth birthday, when she realized that she had to start living, but before she could do that, she had to learn how to live.. Though there were many moments when she would sit there and think '_Okay, my life in normal_', but anyone else would in her position (not including Padfoot or Prongs, maybe Moony), would be thinking _'What the actually fuckity fuck is happening and why is it happening to me?_' but she didn't, she would just roll her eyes, after all she did make some sort of plan for the weird shit that happened. But if she'd bothered to actually think about it, maybe being friends with Prongs and Padfoot brought a certain percentage of craziness into her life.

Maybe it was because she was a witch. Actually, that was probably the main reason, and yes, that should have been mentioned before, and that was quite possibly the reason her life was so fucked and crazy, but she never could quite imagine her life without magic, even if she'd grown up for the first six years of her life having no idea she was special, but she had always assumed that her life would be just as crazy as it is now, just with more boring things like calculus and boyfriends. She'd never really understood the point of being in some sort a relationship, either physical or emotional, in fact, the only thing missing from her plan was relationships. Or having children. She never really planned to fall in love with someone, (but she still did so), let alone actually think about in the future where she might meet someone that is her soulmate and they get married and have a billion babies.

She'd come to the conclusion she was the only sixteen year old girl in existence to not care about love, or relationships, or sex, or kissing, or any of those things, actually she'd come to the conclusion she was the only girl over the age of fourteen who didn't care about those things. Even one of her best friend, Lily Evans (even though they looked almost identical so they often claimed they were sisters, to annoy people or to confuse people, often both), who claimed she only cared about her grades, actually was hopelessly in love with James Potter (Amelia didn't know if Lily knew she was in love with the Quidditch captain, in fact, she wasn't sure Lily wanted to know). And after two years, Amelia had found it completely pointless to actually point out to Lily that he was hopelessly in love with her back and to stop overanalysing every interaction he had with anyone else with breasts (though, something Amelia didn't understand was that James Potter was ridiculously attractive, yes, even she thought that, but why he actually didn't hook up with anyone). Lily Evans overanalysed in the same way Remus always gave his notes to Sirius twenty minutes before the every class, apart from the time Remus gave Sirius fake notes and he spent all of Potions talking about killer wasps, but funnily enough, Slughorn gave him top grades, for the best practical joke he'd ever seen.

Basically, Amelia Bones was a teenage girl who didn't have an of the personality traits that her peers had. Even though, if Amelia was going to tell the truth, she was very lonely, quite possibly why she fell in love with who she did, and maybe, that was why she held a pillow into her chest every night as she slept. Amelia liked reading. Her favourite book at the moment was A Study in Pink by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (she was currently going through a Sherlock Holmes phase). She listened to The Beatles and Fleetwood Mac. She was short. And waiting for her growth spurt. She had freckles and wide green eyes. She was born on the eighth of July and she thought of herself as the blandest person you could ever meet, including Peter Pettigrew. Most of all, she found love ridiculous and pointless, she'd spent many nights lying in bed wondering why on earth would someone fall in love with her? Actually, she wondered if anyone would ever fall in love with her, and what could possibly motivate them to do that act. Yeah, sure, she was great, sure she really was great, maybe even amazing in fact, but everything she had, someone else had. She was just a little of everything with nothing substantial. And everything she didn't have, well, someone else did have. She might have had long bright red hair, but Lily had brighter (and Lily was about sixty times more likely to get laid then she was), she might be smart(ish), but Edward Smith (a sixth year Ravenclaw she was good friends with) was smarter, while someone (Sirius Black) might say she had nice tits, Lola Cross (seventh year Slytherin who was also the biggest slut you could ever possibly meet), had bigger (so apparently nicer), though that didn't really bother her, as it was pretty obvious she shoved toilet paper in her bra.

Maybe, that was why she fell in love with who she did. Maybe, she fell in love with the one person that she couldn't love. Or the one person who couldn't love her back. She hadn't planned to meet Regulus Black, or get to know Regulus Black, or let herself be almost murdered several times by Regulus Black. Life has funny ways of punishing you, especially if you don't believe in the thing that makes the world go around; love.

So Amelia decided that the only thing she was good at was being average, being a pessimist, and on a good day, playing Quidditch, she was perfectly fine with that, she was just going to go through her sixth year at Hogwarts, then soon enough it would be holidays and she could be in this exact spot next year, lying awake and wait for her alarm to go off so she could get ready to leave.

Oh, how she was wrong.

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_AN: And thank you for reading to the end._

_Yes, I do love weird ships, if you haven't noticed, and there will be other ships coming._

_Reviews would be amazing, and this will be a chaptered fic (hopefully)_

_Love always,_

_Alice._


	2. Family and Friendship 101

_AN: Helloo!  
Now, this chapter got a little long...  
Firstly, I don't own anything! The story & nearly all of the characters belong to the amazing and wonderful JK Rowling!  
Two updates in two days, yay!_

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Some things couldn't be planned. Like the events that the next day that drastically changed Amelia's life forever. Like love, like the golden snitch flying in front of your face when you're 140 points down in a Quidditch match, like your pet cat coming into your room just when you're going to go to sleep. But things like meeting all your 'girlfriends' for a catch up two hours before you go to school with each other for the rest of the year. So, packing her trunk and dragging it down to the stairs, jumping over the sixth step because it was broken, and would creak loudly, as her little sister (otherwise known as tyke one), was sleeping, and she didn't want to wake her up, and wondering into the living room to say goodbye to her father.

"Dad…" she smiled fondly at her father, she really loved her dad, though he was nothing like her, a muggle, a lawyer, one of those people who has everything you could ever possibly want, but still a good man underneath. She was the only magical person in her family, what was called a muggleborn, or in some cases, a mudblood, and in extreme cases, a filthy mudblood whore. But she was still proud to come from such a great man, and her mother, her mother was a beauty queen, from the age of five till the present day, and while they did disagree on everything, she loved both her parents, no matter how many beauty pageants they try to enter you in. "You don't have to cry again you know."

"My little girl's all grown up." He sniffed, and she rolled her eyes, this conversation had been repeated every year for the last two years, almost word for word, and it always ended in one of those hugs with the person you love most in this world, the long drawn out ones, where every word you need to say has already been said, and looking back, if this was ever a way to say goodbye, this was it. "Can't believe you're sixteen. I can remember when you were…" she didn't mean to zone out, but she noticed something out of the corner in her eye. In the window, figures in black were talking, huddled together, and while it was probably nothing, the hair still stood up on the back of her neck, and her arms just tightened around her father. Figures of black weren't a good sign, especially in an entirely muggle village, apart from one muggleborn witch living with her parents, her two sisters and a brother. "Lia…Are you okay?"

This was probably the most cost worthy lie Amelia had ever told, her biggest regret, and if she hadn't said these following words, everything would probably be somewhat 'normal', "Nothing, father, I'm fine." She said, with the fakest smile she had ever pulled, but her father believed her, and their embrace was finished, as tyke two (otherwise known as Iris), came running down the stairs, and grabbed onto her leg…and bit it. "IRIS! What the fuc…" she was cut off with a warning look from her father, though his eyes were filled with a glint of amusement, "What the fudge are you doing?" she said, as her little sister's teeth unlatched themselves and Amelia picked tyke two up, grinning at her, she still loved her sister(s), even though she couldn't tell them apart most of the time. The only people Amelia was capable of ever loving was her family.

"I'm not Iris, I'm Irene." The little girl grinned and her father laughed, but Amelia shook her head, opening her little sister's mouth, checking for the missing tooth that identified Iris from Irene, mind you they were both missing teeth, in the way all six and three fifth year olds are, but Iris had her right front tooth missing, Irene had her left. And this one had her right… The six year old closed her mouth and jumped down to the floor from Amelia's arms and ran away. "Have fun at your special school 'Melia, hope you get a boyfriend, and get laaaaaaaaaaaaid!"

Amelia cheeks turned blushed scarlet red, almost making her hair and her face match, and she picked up her trunk, it was heavier than she remembered… Of course, sixth year, more homework (and more hormones), she straightened her cream blazer and her dark purple floral skirt (she hated this skirt, but Lily had bought it for her for her birthday, it was part of her 'grand plan' for Amelia, whatever it was, the skirt was a size too small, well according to her it was), "I really should…" she started, drawing out the last word. If she could go back, she would have stayed, here, with her family, fuck school, fuck her friends, and fuck the future, everything that came after this day. But she had no idea what was going to happen, so she said goodbye to everyone in her household, and got into the fireplace, and dropped the chalk like powder into the fire turning the flames bright green (this, for those who don't know, and it's the most popular form of wizarding transportation), and with a flash and a bang, Amelia Bones saw her family, happy and smiling, (and her father crying) for the very last time.

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The next thing Amelia saw was the outstretched arms of one of her best friend's, Miss Lily Evans. Lily was Head Girl, top of the year, and top of the school, perfect grades, was also extremely pretty, and had a charming smile that could win the heart of anyone, male or female, so in general, she was Little Miss Perfect. And while there was nothing Amelia hated more than perfection, she also knew that there was no such thing, because, she knew that Lily was frightfully oblivious, and had a massive temper. They were also both muggleborn, and they both thought that guys were dumb. Well, Lily thought most guys were dumb, but with two special exceptions, Remus Lupin (Amelia was inclined to agree with this) and James Potter, whereas Amelia knew that all guys were dumb, in fact, she openly said it many times a day.

So Amelia and Lily hugged it out, the elder one going all motherly on the other for a moment, brushing the soot of her clothes, and fixing up her skirt (Lily knew Amelia hated that skirt, in fact, that was the whole reason she chose it), pushing her towards the rest of the group, as follows;

Katelyn 'Katie' Rich, who was a fifth year Ravenclaw, with tanned skin and short dark hair, Katie always looked as if she just came off the Quidditch field, she never really bothered with her hair, or make-up, or in words, 'any of that shit'. She was the joker, someone who didn't care about schoolwork at all, especially rare for a Ravenclaw, and as much as Ravenclaw is known for its intelligence, Katie was incredibly witty, and very creative as well, she was the Marauder's go to girl for anything they couldn't pull off by themselves, though often she blackmailed them but saying she would tell Lily if they didn't let her join in, so they let her, and often she made the prank about twenty times better. Also, she was quite possibly insane, actually, Amelia had proof she was quite definitely insane. She could stand Sirius' bad jokes.

Lauren Isaac, seventh year Gryffindor, certainly insane, and in love with Remus Lupin (as much as Amelia liked Remus, and thought that Lauren and him would make a nice couple, being in love with anyone made you crazy in her book), she had long dark brown hair which stayed deadly straight no matter what, dark brown eyes that made her look like Bambi, she was sweet, and romantic, and she didn't know the difference between love and sex. She was kind and caring to the very extreme extent and everyone liked her, she was so bubbly, almost to the point she should be annoying, but she couldn't. It was like physically impossible to have a grudge against her. Even most of the Slytherins did. She was the least hexed person in the school for Merlin's sake!

Eloise Finch, sixth year Hufflepuff, Amelia's confidant and roommate, thought she was a cat. Quite honestly she believed she was part cat. She had messy brown hair like a lion's mane, that she never could quite tame, pale white skin, and dark brown eyes. Her ways of showing affection were to lick you, bite you, or sit on you. A lot of people thought she was a nutcase, but Amelia thought she was pretty awesome, when she wasn't in one of her cat moods; she was a very good friend, who you could trust, because if she didn't like you, you would be bitten.

Rachel McGuiness, sixth year Ravenclaw, self-confessed slut, yet a really sweet girl who cared a lot about her friends, had curly blonde hair and large blue eyes, enough to make anyone fall in love with her. She kept secrets well, and had even more than anyone else Amelia knew, apart from one, which Amelia had figured out a long time ago but hadn't said anything, she wasn't even sure Rachel knew that herself yet.

Last but not least, Mary Macdonald, seventh year Gryffindor, Sirius Black's on-again-off-again girlfriend, who liked parties and disliked schoolwork, who liked gossiping and disliked studying. Liked bad guys and disliked good guys. Didn't understand why Amelia listened to Fleetwood Mac because their music was sad, but secretly, adored The Beatles. Party girl on the outside, not much more on the inside, apart from the fact she could be nice. Sometimes. If she wanted to.

They were the 'gang', a group of best friends who go over three years and three houses, and while their personalities are all polar opposite, and even if Mary and Lily fought every two seconds and Eloise bit Katie once too often, and Rachel was keeping another secret from the group again, in a strange way, they all fit together, like some mix-match puzzle, that formed some sort of weird picture, and with the Marauder's linked in with them as well, the friendship group was pretty fucking crazy.

"So, Mary, how are you and Sirius going?" Lauren giggled, batting her eyelashes at the blonde sitting across from her, resting her head against her hands, while Lauren was a very kind-hearted girl, she wasn't exactly the sharpest tool in the shed, for example, she honestly believed that James, Remus and Sirius were brothers, with Peter being one of their cousins (he wasn't attractive enough to be directly related), and she was one of those girls who believed love was everything, and she believed that what Sirius and Mary had was 'love', but like always, Amelia had another theory. They were in Love with each other. The 'Love' being completely and utterly physical, as the other love was just another thing that didn't exist, but people needed some sort of pipedream, something to hold onto when the going got tough. Her theory was confirmed from being Mary's friend, she knew, unfortunately, that Sirius was apparently the best sex she ever had, which made Amelia feel nauseous. So maybe it was love, maybe their love was real, because they must have felt something for each other, or else they wouldn't just keep getting back together, right?

"Oh, we caught up heaps during the holidays, he slept over at mine a few times, but we didn't really do much sleeping if you know what I mean, and I'm happy to say…that we're together again! And I'm so sure it's going to last this time, I'm aiming for at least a week, hopefully a month." Mary had her 'I love Sirius Black and I want to have his babies' voice on, which was also simular to 'I love puppies' voice. The two red heads shared a look, their eyes saying the words they couldn't say aloud, seeming as Mary would most likely punch them in the face, or hex them, either way it was better to be on her good side, so they gave her a fake look at interest, you might not care about the amount of times two of your closest friends bang, but you can pretend you care, and that way no-one gets hurt, and if Mary thinks you're not listening, she'll tell you again, with every. Single. Detail. So it's best to listen, even if you don't care.

"Mary, please don't give us any more details, if I ever get the chance to bang Sirius, not that I'm saying is ever going to happen, but if I ever do, I want to be, hopefully, pleasantly surprised." Katie gave the blonde hair and blue eyed girl a cheesy grin, which was returned with an eye roll, "Though, when I think about, I don't think I'll find anything surprising about it at all...Seeming as, he has fucked almost every girl between the ages of 15 and 17, apart from our darling Amelia, who hasn't been fucked by anyone, and our beloved Lily, who's 'saving' herself for James Potter." That actually wasn't true, Lily had had sex with someone, a muggle lad by the name of Rodger, but she didn't tell anyone about it, she wasn't embarrassed, she just wanted one year where her friends and she could actually concentrate on school, and not on guys, or anything like that. Not bloody likely.

"Um, we should go." Lily smiled at the group, its quarter past ten and the train leaves at eleven, and it's about a thirty minute walk to Kings Cross Station, and I don't know about you, but I've already sent my bags to Hogwarts, so I don't have to drag them…"a look was sent Amelia's way, seeming as she was the only one who hadn't had her bags sent early, or shrunk them, and I have my Head Girl badge in my pocket, I also have to be there early to help the first years…" she pulled a well-polished crest out of her pocket, with a large grin on her face, and everyone else stood up, Amelia pulling her trunk along behind her, almost heading out of the door, if she was going to struggle with her luggage she was going to struggle in front of everyone else.

"Ladies, I don't think you want to go out there right now," the bartender stepped out of from behind the bar, as instincts go, Amelia's were extremely on edge right now, she wasn't sure why, but she basically dropped her trunk, and her fingers wrapped her fingers around her wand in her skirt pocket, what was happening…? Firstly, the figures outside her home, the rumours she'd heard, and now this… "Look, Missy, I'm not going to hurt you, I'm just going to get you to Kings Cross Station, and you can sit on the train and wait till eleven o'clock, but you're not going out there, especially if you're muggleborn, I'm not sure what's happening, but it's sure as hell not good." Tom the bartender had this knack of caring a lot about people, and it was really nice, but people weren't always thrilled to take help from him. But still, they took his advice, and soon enough they ended up on Platform Nine and Three Quarters.

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"Everyone…Stay together…Okay…?" Lily ordered is her most demanding tone, but this just caused Amelia to wonder off, leaving her trunk abandoned, she didn't know who she was looking for, or why, but she knew that something was devastatingly wrong. Do you ever get this gut feeling? This emptiness in her heart. Something felt as if it was missing, not missing, gone, as if it had been ripped out of her. But she pushed past it; after all, it had to be indigestion or something, right? "Amelia fucking Bones!" Lily's voice echoed in the background, and she looked back, seeing the flaming red hair in the distance, but she doesn't bother to go back, Lily will be fine without her, plus she's shovelling first years by the barrel into one compartment.

"LIA!" a gruff, deep voice matching a tall, lanky, messy black haired, broken glasses wearing, with a crooked grin and soft brown eyes that would make a girl melt in an instant, a man who needs no introduction, but I kind of have to introduce him anyways, the one, the only James Potter. He wrapped up the girl who was about half his height in his arms, and she reluctantly hugged him back. They were friends, some would say very close friends, but it was strange, strange in such a way it made their friend ship almost seem cliché. But she thought of James as a cousin, or as a distant relative you see at Christmas and funerals, close enough you like each other and would happily live with each other, but not enough that finding each other attractive is creepy.

"James! Have you grown under sixteen feet for something?" she peered up at him, an eyebrow quirked, before glancing over at someone walking past them, giving them a small wave, before re-joining her conversation with James.

"I've always been this tall, have you always been so short? You've must have shrunk in one of those muggle clothes washing devices…What are they called again?" he laughed, making fun of her height was one of his favourite pastimes, not including annoying Lily Evans, asking Lily Evans out on dates, and being rejected by Lily Evans.

"Dryers?" she shrugged, but before he could answer she was pulled away by the Head Girl. "Lily! I'm not your personal servant who you can drag away without notice when she's trying to talk to someone! For fuck's sake I haven't seen him since the end of last term. And before you ask, he didn't say anything about you, but I'm sure he has a sock in his trunk with your name on it."

"…Why would he have a…sock with my name on it?" Poor Lily. Always so oblivious. "I mean, it'd be on his foot, like he'd wear it, what's the point of having my name on one of his socks, won't people just give it to me if he loses it? Instead of giving it to him? Unless, did he steal one of my socks? Are my feet really as big as his? Why are you talking to him? I thought you said that all guys were idiots." Why Lily was one of the smartest people around, she didn't know a thing about lingo, or what some things were, and Amelia was buying time to stop herself from being the one who had to explain. "Anyways, let's go get a compartment, before they're all completely filled." Amelia just shrugged and nodded, letting her friend drag her into the train and into an already filled compartment, filled with all interesting people; Remus Lupin, Lauren Isaac (wherever Remus was Lauren was), Edward Smith, which Amelia happily sat next to, Ed was a quiet young boy, with scruffy brown hair, pale skin, hazel eyes, and a little bit of scruff, he liked reading, and books, and listening to sad music.

"Hey Ed." She grinned, but was blatantly ignored, so she turned to Remus, who was pretending Katie wasn't staring at him, of course he knew Lauren was hopelessly in love with him, but he didn't want to hurt her by telling her he wasn't interested, and as much as he would love to be with her, she was better off without. "Remus?" she piped out, and Katie threw something at her, she was guessing it was a chocolate frog, "Thank you Lauren." She grinned, breaking it in half and putting the one part of the treat in the hand that was hovering in front of her, the pale hand with a lot of freckles, belonging to Ed. "First of all you don't talk to me, then you expect me to give you food?" he just shrugged, eyes not leaving the page, but his eyes did flick off the page for a split second to wink at her.

Peace and quiet was actually quite nice. A new discovery for Amelia, apparently. Well, she had fallen asleep basically as soon as the train had started moving, but her minds had decided to play reruns of her holiday nightmares while she was dozing. Flashes of spells and screams, voices, familiar voices calling out her name before they were silenced. Forever. But this time, they were almost so real. Usually the voices were muffled or too high or too low, but this time they were crystal clear. Luckily, before things became too gruesome, they always did, someone had wacked her on the head with a book. "Remus?" Her eyes flickered open into those of one curious person, pale skin, scruffy hair, strong jar, she'd seen him around…But had no idea who he was. "Wait…You're not Remus…Who are you?" she sat up, looking around, everyone had left, and the compartment was dark, but the train was still moving… She pulled whatever that was draped across her to cover her, pulling her wand out of her pocket, pointing it straight at his chest.

"Look. You were screaming in your sleep, I was just making sure you okay." He grinned, pulling his robes he'd used to keep her warm off her, winking at her before walking off somewhere, leaving her stunned speechless. She stare blankly into the space where he'd been, been and gone. He was strange, he seemed oddly familiar, she'd seen him around quite a bit, but she couldn't place him. It was the first time she'd been actually stunned by a guy. She shook her head, getting up and wondering out into the corridor, looking through all the compartments, before finding one with someone she knew, actually, someone she liked in it, though she did walk in on Sirius and Mary, and spent ten seconds trying to figure out how that position was possible. Then she walked in to the Slug Club compartment, where she quickly ran away, before finding one with someone she knew, Eloise Finch.

Yes, Eloise was one of the group's members, but she was probably by far Amelia's closest friend, even though she was probably mental, Eloise did believe she was a cat stuck in a witch's body, and that she had nine lives. Apparently, she was on her third life, and as soon as she was allowed, she was going to become an Animagus, and permanently live in her cat form. "Lia, you look tired. Actually your hair looks like a lion's mane. You really should get that fixed…Are you okay? You look like someone gave you a kitten, punched you in the face, and took that kitten away from you…"

"I'm fine, really, Eloise," she gave the brunette a small smile running her hand through her hair to sort out all the knots, it still wasn't really presentable, but it wasn't like anyone would be looking at her, no-one ever was. Maybe that was made her so bitter, but really, she just had a bunch of principals, a lot actually, and plans for everything, and what was wrong with that? At least she had some direction, some plan in her life. The afternoon wasted away, and in the early evening the train finally pulled into the station, and the gang plus the Marauders, got a coach up the castle. The basics of what happened are… Eloise bit Remus, and curled up on his lap, Lauren started to give Eloise the silent treatment, Sirius and Mary snogged, James and Lily argued, Katie and Rachel talked about the hottest guys in the school, Peter did a crossword puzzle, which he never really completed, and Amelia just stared out of the window, wondering what was going to happen this year, and exactly who that mysterious person was, and why he cared so much, or maybe it was because she might have been screaming her lungs out, and he just wanted her to shut up…

"Oi, Amelia, get out of the coach already." Rachel yelled, grabbing her hand and literally pulling her straight out of the coach and towards the castle, and in her usual fashion, she tripped down the stairs and almost fell face first onto the ground, "Seriously, Lia, what's going on? You're like all spaced out or something, are you high or something? James, if this is one of your tricks, it's not funny!" she let go of Rachel's hand, proving to everyone she could walk perfectly straight.

"I didn't drug Amelia, Rachy-Poo," James laughed, as the brunette pouted, well not so much as pouted as had her mega-bitch face on, which basically was her pouting face, as Rachel was too sweet to have bitch face apparently, but that doesn't mean she couldn't slap the shit out of you if she had to. "I have some standards, geez love." He chuckled, but still gave the younger red head a concerned look, as she wondered into the castle, not bothering to look back. Amelia wasn't really in the mood to talk to anyone (was she ever?) but she especially didn't want to talk to anyone, even her friends, not even her father. But as she pushed the door open, and gave the smallest smile to Professor McGonagall, but as she tried to walk past, the professor just stepped in her way.

"Professor Dumbledore would like to talk to you, Miss Bones, could you please come with me…" Amelia's eyebrow just raised, she wanted to shake her head and say that she wanted to go to dinner, and then go to bed, but the look on the teacher's face said that she had no choice in the mater, so grudgingly she followed the teacher up the stairs, maybe she was just imagining things, but the professor looked sad, like something bad had happened, and that very question was on the tip of her tongue before Minerva's voice rose. "Liquorice Allsorts." A statue of a phoenix suddenly vanished and a stairway appeared, and with a nod from the teacher, Amelia wondered up the stairs and appeared in the doorway of a large office, with a wooden desk sitting right in the middle, with massive, sky high bookshelves, with every space filled with a books with languages she had never seen before, she would actually bet all her savings on that Lily didn't even know these, but by far the most peculiar thing in this room was the old man sitting behind the desk. Long, wispy grey hair, a long grey beard, crescent shaped glasses, and bright green robes.

"Miss Bones, thank you for coming," and with a click of his fingers a plate with a pile of sandwiches and a goblet of clear looking liquid appeared, and his long fingers beckoned her to come forward, though his eyes didn't look up from his page. She slowly walked over and sat down, almost amazed at how comfortable this chair was, she took a sandwich, peanut butter and jelly, her favourite, and took a bite, "May I ask you a question? Who do you think is winning the war? And I want you to give me a reason why you believe your answer." Amelia paused, swallowing her bite and looking over at the bookcase, how was she supposed to answer this?

"I don't think anyone is winning sir." She took a deep breath, as the professor narrowed his eyes, "Everyone is losing something, right?" she asked, tilting her head to the side, biting her lower lip, was the professor judging her? She knew that everyone had opinions, but she'd only ever seen the professor as someone who wouldn't, he accepted people for who they were, or who they weren't. "Both sides are losing the war, as both sides are losing lives. And at the end of the day, no-one's lives won't be affected." A small smile twitched at the lips of the Headmaster, he bowed his head, "I'm sorry sir, but am I in some sort of trouble? Isn't the feast starting soon, if it hasn't started already…?"

"You're right, no-one is winning, but someone has to pretend they are, as if no-one will stop till there is a definite winner and loser, so I personally like to think we're winning. That way, we have the motivation to try and end it." Amelia nodded, that made sense, but she honestly didn't like were this was going, and the way was talking, it was like when a teacher is talking about a really easy subject, then they assign two essays and a diorama.

"Amelia, I'm sorry to inform you, but…" the professor paused, taking his glasses off, and taking a deep breath.

"Your entire family was murdered this morning."

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_AN: Dun, dun DUN!_

_Thank you for reading, lovelies!  
Reviews would be much appreciated._


	3. How To Be Human

_AN: Three updates in three days! Yaaay!  
I don't own anything, everything belongs to the talented and marvellous JK Rowling!  
Thank you for reading!_

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Her pounding heart stops still. Her face features always slightly rosy, turned snow white. And suddenly she can't breathe. Her lungs are fighting against her own body, trying to break out, trying to escape her and pain suddenly flooding through her veins. Her heart is trying to break free, as all the suffering in her blood just streams straight to her heart, before it pumps it back into her body, reaching every inch, every fingertip, every muscle, every pour of her skin, and soon enough it took over her. Her hands clenched the chair, her knuckles turning white, and her bones almost tearing through her skin. Words tried to escape her mouth, but her body was frozen, frozen in time. She didn't want to move on, desperately trying to crawl back into time, to stop this moment from ever happening.

"…You're…" the word just managed to slip out of her throat, but the word was coarse and harsh, "Please…" her soft voice had turned into begs, though still no tears fell, how could she let them? Maybe she was in pain, but tears wouldn't solve anything, that would just be admitting that she's hurting. "Please…Tell me you're lying…" she shook her head, this was all just some sort of bad dream, she didn't even bother waiting for him to reply, much too scared of the answer, standing up so suddenly making the chair fall back, shaking her head constantly, sprinting out of the room and stumbling down the stairs, running into the castle's stone walls, tripping up stairs, the castle wasn't too busy, but there was still people around, still people to run into, a few people trying to steady her but her eyesight was foggy and she couldn't make out faces, or when they did they just turned into twisted things, half animal, half human.

After several scrapped knees, cut up palms, possible broken finger and a quite possible black eye she'd found her destination, the Astronomy Tower, she'd always believed that happiness was like hot air, it rose up into the air and sadness stayed down near the ground, another one of her twisted philosophies, that only really made sense to her. She wondered over to the furthest corner from the door, where the window met the wall, and she slide down to sit on the floor, her knees tucking easily into her chest, and her head was buried into her knees. Her body shook, almost invisibly but almost violently at the same time, making a single tear break loose, but she wiped it away, keeping her eyes tightly closed, insuring that tears couldn't fall, that they wouldn't fall.

Her body crippled to the ground, her head rested against her thighs, her arms wrapped around her legs, tucked into her body, with the fear that the pain would make her mind and her body split into two, though detached didn't seem so bad, she'd felt everything there was to feel in the past hour, day, even week, and if she just couldn't feel anymore, that would be ideal, maybe even good. Two more tears rolled down her cheeks, but she wiped them away again, not letting them take over her. How could she let them take over her? This was her life. And she had everything planned out. But she had never had this scenario planned, this wasn't a possibility, it could never, ever happen, not ever. But it had. Her father. Gone. Her mother. Gone. Her sisters. Both gone. Her brother. Gone. Her family. Gone. Her life. Gone. Everything. Gone. Destroyed. Her body rocked back and forth. Back and forth.

"Dad…Iris…Irene…Matthew…Mum…Dad…Iris…Irene…Matthew…" she repeated the words, their names, over and over again, almost like a chant, for minutes? Hours? Before it was broken, with a simple plead, "Please…Come back." Sleep started to attack her senses, and she yawned, no longer trying to fight anything, letting one complete moment of pain, before sleep penetrated her mind completely, letting her fall into a strange dreamless sleep, maybe her mind found no point in giving her nightmares as the her worst nightmare had actually came painfully true.

Light started to penetrate her eyes, something warm was wrapped around her arms, and something soft under her head, she wiped the sleep out of her eyes, but when she remember what had happened wished she could just fall back into the blissful oblivion, but something covered her eyes, or someone, his skin was cold but his breath was warm against her skin, as if his face was hovering so close to hers. "Go back to sleep, okay?" the voice, the voice, his voice! The guy in the train, her hand reached out to push away the obstruction, but his other hand just forced her hand down back down, and before she could say a word, he spoke up. "Go. To Sleep. _Love._" He repeated, his voice ringing out in her mind like church bells chiming, just like the ones from the church down the road from her house, his voice kept echoing in her mind, like a song, especially the '_love_' part, bringing something up to her nose, something that smelt strangely sweet. And she was knocked out again.

The second time she woke up someone was sitting next to her, but this time her head was resting against the wooden floorboards, and this time a blanket wasn't wrapped around her, but someone's jacket, she slowly sat up, yawning and stretching, turning to face the stranger next to her. Well, not exactly stranger. Remus Lupin. Nose buried deep in a book. "I heard what happened." Folding the corner of his page, and placing the black leather bound book in his lap, his eyes are concentrating on the wall in front of them, and she joined into this pointless stare, "I'm sorry, Amelia, I really am." He said, his voice rough, "Lily went batshit crazy and made a whole search party looking for you, you disappeared for two days, seriously, everyone went looking for you, what I'm trying to say is that, people care about you Amelia, care about you more than you think. While you might think love is stupid, or _love_, Love, or whatever you like to call it, but there is a third kind of love, you know, it's the love between friends. The love between Mary and Lily, between James and Sirius, between Lauren and Rachel. They all love each other. And, we all love you. You're one of a kind Amelia, you know that right? And you're allowed to hurt. You're human. It's perfectly fine for you to hurt, you've had everyone's worst nightmare thrust upon you, and you're allowed to suffer. But if you think, for one second, that people aren't going to try and support you, or at the very least suffer with you, then you're more an idiot than James is around Lily."

Amelia tried not to snigger at the last comment, but with all the strength she had left (though that wasn't much, though it had been greatly increased from minus six billion to about two, thanks to the mysterious visitor, and with Remus' motivational speech) she managed the smallest of smiles. "Thank you Moony, means a lot…I suppose I should go and talk to people again, right? Or will people avoid me because they won't know how to react?" she shrugged, running her fingers through her hair again, and fixing the collar on her shirt, before getting a whiff of her slightly unpleasant body odour. "Shit, I stink." She mumbled, standing up, a little shaky on her feet, but managing to stay upright, giving a Remus a small smile, she knew about Remus' 'furry little problem', but she didn't mind, he was strong enough not to let it get him down, not visibly, though she had a slight feeling it still got him down. The suffering you don't show is always the suffering that hurts most. "You're staying here right?" she asked quietly, but he had already gone back to his book, "I'll take that as a yes, again, thanks Remus." She said as she walked away, wondering down the stairs quietly, no-one noticing her, thank Merlin, everyone else, though not many people wondered the halls alone anymore.

She felt a pair of eyes on her, burning into her skin like lasers, and she turned around, though there was no-one there, just a deserted passageway, she sighed, turning around and slamming straight into someone, who then, pushed her to the floor, "Filth mudblood orphan." An unfortunate girl by the name of Lola Cross, AKA the pureblood Slytherin slut, muttered under breath, but quite loudly, a couple of the girl's friends laughed, and Amelia just pushed herself off the ground, and pushed past the group, 'accidently' kicking Lola in the shin, before continuing to walk or half run towards the Hufflepuff Common Room, actually amazed that someone, apart from Lola, hadn't noticed her, as this was Hogwarts. Nothing was kept secret in Hogwarts, unless you kept absolutely everything to yourself, or only tell people that won't tell anyone, and make sure there wasn't anyone eavesdropping. And in Hogwarts, everyone was always eavesdropping on everyone.

Coming up to her dorm, which was surprisingly empty, there was always someone in there, always, someone studying, or someone sleeping, more often than not, someone shagging someone else, someone was always doing someone, though Amelia was usually the one sleeping at strange times, or the one studying. Putting her jacket on the bed, and taking off her shoes, socks and tights, before pulling a towel out of the third from the floor draw of her dresser (the dorm had a no-nude policy, if you had to get changed in the dorm, you jumped up on our bed and closed the curtains and got changed there, and if you had to put your tights on, well, good luck. You had to get changed in the shower or the bathroom, or make sure no-one; absolutely no-one would walk in on you.) Wondering into the bathroom and locking the door behind her, turning the hot water on and taking a deep breath.

The hot water stung at her skin, almost painfully, but she was already so full of pain and suffering and hurt that it didn't actually felt so bad, it actually made her feel…better? How could she feel better? What was better? Less than bad? More positive than negative? But there was no positive, only negative piling up on itself, until everything just became too much. But wasn't this already too much? Apparently not. Was she some kind of experiment on how much pain a human being could hold without crumbling? She was already falling, trying to hold onto something, or was it someone, or some people. Her friends, her future, her plans, or…him. Why was she thinking about him? That mysterious stranger that hit her with a book but then called her love, before literally knocking her out again. She didn't even know what he looked like clearly, let alone his name, or if he actually just wanted her to stop screaming, but the pillow and the blanket? It might not even be the same person, it might have just been a dream, some twisted dream from the back of her mind? It wasn't a nightmare; it was just something her mind made to torture her later. So she convinced herself it was a dream, because whatever apart from pain was running through her veins right now was just something stupid, some sort of offset, maybe, an offset of too much suffering in a very short amount of time, to try and make you hold onto something, your mind's desperate attempt to stop you from falling apart, by making you hallucinate and go crazy? She took a deep breath, turning her face into the water stream, the hot water hitting her directly in her face, making her gasp in shock, though what else did she think was going to happen?

The heat, and the steam, started to make her eyes sting, tears threating to fall again, and when she tried to blink them away, the floodgates just opened and the tears started to roll fast and freely down her face. "No…" she gasped, trying push them back, but she couldn't, just too much to push away, her tears and the shower water mixing. Her sobs became louder, and her last hope was that no-one was able to hear her cry, because, as far as she could remember, no-one, none of her friends, not even none of her family, maybe except from when she was a baby, had ever seen her cry. Maybe that was a bad thing, but crying was just admitting you're in pain, and everyone believed the best medicine for pain was love, and love was just bullshit, because didn't love just give you the horrible pain anyways? Pain was heartbreak and heartbreak came from love. She had it all figured out. But her heart was still breaking, shattering into a hundreds, thousands, millions, billions (?) of pieces. Because, as much as she didn't believe in love, unlike everyone else, but like everyone else, she still loved. She loved her family. She loved her father. She loved her sisters. She loved her brothers. She loved her mother. And the more she thought about them, and the more she loved them, the more pain she felt, the more she cried, the more tears ran down her cheeks, and she had to press her arms against the wall to keep herself standing straight. "No…NO!" her sobs turned into screams, and now, she buckled onto her knees, letting the water rain over her, finally deciding to let it all out, well most of it, she knew that she'd have to carry the pain around like a burden for a long time yet, and that it would never really leave her, she'd just learn to cope. But fuck that! Learning to cope? You don't cope with things like this; they eat and destroy you whole and everyone you've ever cared about. Or they destroy you.

Finally, finding the energy to stop crying, and to get up and turn the water off, carefully putting her pyjamas on, and slowly opened the door, had it been five minutes? Or ten? Or was it an hour or two? She didn't even try and guess, just carefully opening the door, peering over to see if anyone was waiting for her (she was certain there would nobody shagging, her crying would have probably destroyed the mood). But there was only one person, staring at her, with the smallest smile, him. Why him? He was sitting on her bed. Who was he anyway? But it had to be him. His same pale face and messy hair, she closed the bathroom door behind her, trying to figure out of her mind was playing some sort of trick on her, blinking several times, "Hi…" she breathed, her heart skipping a beat, for some completely stupid reason, which was completely pointless and utterly stupid. "What are you doing here…?" she asked, wondering where exactly where her wand is, as much as she was…charmed…by the stranger sitting on her bed, she was still somewhat cautious, but realizing her hand was lying on her bedside table...funny…she didn't put it there, keeping her back to the wall, and her eyes on him (though it was hard to take them off) she bit her lip slightly, but his smile just turned into a grin, his fingers beckoning her to come and sit next to him, and like a puppet she agreed, almost being pulled towards him by some magnetic force.

"Hey, don't be scared." His voice is echoing in her ears again, like what some people would call alarm bells, telling her that something was wrong, that she should run away while she had the chance, but he wasn't scary, no, he was the opposite, he was comforting, but something was wrong, something was wrong with him, he wasn't sick, but just the way he looked, he looked as if he wasn't real. A marble statue with perfect, smooth features, his hair was done like most of the movie stars she'd seen in those strange teen movies she'd seen (and explained) with Lauren and Rachel over the holidays. But like a puppet she still went towards him, as if she was drawn to him, and soon enough she's sitting next to him. His strong arms wrap around her and he holds her close, but his skin is cold, almost icy, but he keeps her so close, but he's missing something that she can't figure out, but he pulls her down onto her bed and rocks her back and forth, making her feel at home, and sure enough, she starts to drift asleep, but something's wrong. And she's worked it out.

His heart isn't beating. He doesn't have a heart. He's not real. He's some delusion in her mind and her eyes jolt open, there's no arms around her anymore, no more breath against her neck and calming words, everything's suddenly freezing cold, she can't feel anything anymore, it's just this overwhelming numbness, but she welcomes it with open arms, because feeling nothing is better than everything, right? Nothing is real anymore, her life, her dreams, is she in the realm of insanity? One minute things are perfectly normal, the next minute she's lying in bed with a man without a heart, with freezing cold breath, and skin, he was just some sort fragment of imagination, made to trick her, made to make her believe in something, as for a spilt second she believed, oh, she truly believed in love, and that split second, it owned her, and it frightened her. It scared the shit out of her. Now she was just floating, floating in blackness.

"AMELIA BONES!" a familiar voice screamed out, she was pulled from…from whatever she was in, her eyes snapped open and she lay in her bed, and Eloise was standing over her, before…Oomph! A pillow whacked into her head several times, "WAKE. UP. NOW. PLEASE." Her friend screamed in her ear, "I want to have all the pancakes before Sirius gets there." Eloise pulls her from her bed, and literally dresses her like a doll, pulling her school uniform, tying up her tie, and dragging her down the stairs, and Amelia couldn't help but think of a million reasons why Eloise was her best friend, making sure she was still operating functionally, when the time came when Eloise was going to turn permanently cat Amelia was going to miss her greatly, as Eloise was an amazing friend, but Amelia had a feeling she was going to make an fabulous feline.

Wondering down the stairs, hand in hand, Eloise dragged her around, like a dog dragging its owner for a walk, until they reach the Great Hall, where a small group of people were gathered. Though it's not really small, it's actually quite large, but they're all her friends, so she smiled slightly at them, though the action feels forced and fake, mostly because it is, but Lily pulls her into her arms and hugs her, "I'm so sorry Amelia, I'll tell you what we'll do, we'll just concentrate on your…" she assumed that Lily was going to continue by saying 'studies' but James was now holding her, "Lily, shut up. Lia, we're here for you okay." Things along those lines were said again and again, till Sirius and Eloise had decided it was time for their morning race for pancakes. They sprinted down the middle of the room, each either side of the table before taking a seat opposite one another, both shoving their face with pancakes. Lauren and Rachel shared a look, before following them in a walk, with their arms linked, both glancing looks at the other when they weren't watching, and one by one everyone went to sit down, until it was her just standing there, again in some sort of trance.

Well, until, someone banged into her and knocked her into the ground. Again. People had an awful habit with that. But this person, this person had pale skin, almost snow white skin, and he was almost ghostlike in his appearance, his cheekbones were strong, yet his face had a sense of softness to it, a welcoming presence, dark brown messy hair that looked actually like bedhead, as if he woke up, shook his head and his hair fell perfectly into that position, or as if someone had run their fingers through it (which was something Amelia very badly wanted to do), and dark, mysterious eyes that drew her in even more, leaving her quite frankly out of breath, her heart this time actually skipping a beat for real, though she scolded herself for that stupid, childlike action, he was really quite tall and through his grey woollen jumper she could see that he was certainly well built, and on her position on the floor she felt somewhat dominated. It was him. It had to be. It was him in every shockingly real detail, his lips twitched for a millisecond into a smile, and she had to pin her arms behind her back to stop them from touching him, while the dream version of him was lovely, he wasn't real. But the young man standing in front of her? He was so scaringly real that she stayed on her place on the floor, almost stunned, before she managed to pull herself to her feet, looking up at him, and into his eyes once more, seeing what she was almost certain was a wink as he turned around and walked off, muttering something about 'a disgusting mudblood', and Amelia stood there, dumbfounded, not sure how to react. Well, not until Lauren finally got up and pulled her towards where the group was seated, and the elder girl muttered in the younger one's ear.

"You're turning into a bloody mental case, love."

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_AN: This is a weird chapter, I know, what I had originally written was too short, and I didn't think it covered enough, so I scrapped it.  
But, yay for Regulus coming in more! He will be making much more of an appearance from now on, as I just need to story to get started first.  
Also, I've been watching obscene amounts of television and films recently, so I've been half writing half paying attention to whatever it is I'm watching, but it's currently a long weekend, so I'll (hopefully) update tomorrow, then I go back to prison, I mean school, then updates should be frequent, but not every day.  
Reviews would be awesome!  
Love always,_

_Alice._


	4. Love and Hate

_AN: Sorry this took so long, school sucks, then writers block, but thank Merlin I have inspiration and am writing the next chapter straight away!  
I don't own anything, everything belongs to the one and only JK Rowling.  
Warning, it does get a little dark, so just be cautious if you get affected by talk of __suicide.  
Thank you and enjoy (hopefully)_

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Amelia never took well to being blindfolded. It all started when she was eight, and one of the girls in her class was having a party, of course, they girl didn't really want Amelia there, or otherwise known as the little freak, and she didn't really want to go, but her parents, not knowing about her 'special powers' yet, insisted on sending her, so she could make more an effort on making friends, but they were playing piñata, when it was Amelia turn, she completely missed the bloody thing, in fact she was facing the wrong way, and everyone started laughing at her, so she tapped it with the bat slightly…And the whole thing exploded, including all the lollies, and the container landed on the floor in flames, setting fire to the girl's lawn. Even though the mother said it wasn't Amelia's fault, she was still made to walk home early, but, on the plus side, she got three lolly bags, as the mother felt so guilty sending her home.

So when Rachel and Lauren jumped up behind her and wrapped a Gryffindor scarf around her eyes and started to drag her along someone, you can expect there was a bit (a lot) of fighting back, she even tried to bite someone's arm, but it turned out it was her own, so she gave up, as her arm now hurt, and it was pointless to fight, probably because she'd figured from the 'hushed' whispers, there was a group behind her. "Why are you kidnapping me guys?" she asked loudly, which was just met by a chuckle of who she was sure was Sirius. "Of course Sirius is on the kidnap squad, why are you kidnapping me anyways?"

"For the love of Merlin Amelia, SHUT UP!" several people yelled, at once, and if Amelia's eyes weren't closed, she would have rolled her them, so in the end, grudgingly, she followed along. They went up staircases, through passageways, past people, and she was pretty sure someone threw a scrunched up piece of paper at her face, but finally, after going up what she was pretty sure was the Grand Staircase, and in though a portrait, and finally, someone pulled the obstruction over her eyes off, and the unusual brightness, and the smell, of the room made her step back, her eyes adjusting to the sudden light, but as she looked around, it became pretty clear where she was. The Gryffindor Sixth Year Boys Dormitory, a delightful place, with underwear and socks all over the floor, an very interesting smell, piles of old homework, Remus' mountains of books, and something that looks suspiciously like week old vomit in the corner. She turned around, raising an eyebrow at the people behind her, Remus, James, Sirius, Peter, Rachel, Lauren, Katie, Mary, Eloise and Edward, who'd look like he'd been forced to leave his book behind and come here, but he still gave her a small smile and she returned it.

"Lily's coming. Well, if she figures it out, we kind of, sort of, didn't tell her. She'd go off at us for having people in our dorm." Remus shrugged, flicking his wand to get rid of as much as the mess as he could, but the suspicious vomit stuff didn't move, and he gave up, and he wasn't going to clean that up by hand. "I mean, don't get me wrong, I adore our little-yet-quite-tall Lily, but she doesn't need to be here. Plus, she's gone into ultra-study mode, while also creating study schedules for all of us…Okay; maybe she does need to be here. Last one to sit on the ground has to go get her!" everyone immediately jumped onto the floor at once, till the last one standing was Eloise, but the group decided against sending her (seeming as she'd probably bite Lily to get her here), so Katie was forced to go instead. And by forced Eloise started to lick her face. And before you ask, Eloise licked everyone's face. Excluding teachers and Slytherins. "Anyway, the reason we're all here, is because, quite frankly, Lia, you've been quite down lately, and basically, we want to cheer you up. So we got pizza." Remus continued speaking, and shared a look with Lauren, as Eloise crawled around, rubbing up against everyone, before curling up again in between Edward and James, making a noise that generally sounded like some sort of purr. James pulled out about twenty large boxes from under his bed, all of them smelling delicious, and all of them sat up a little straighter, apart from Rachel, who just covered her nose.

"Would pizza be alright with my very strict diet? I've only eaten healthy food, like vegetables and fruits and stuff. And only drinking water, occasionally lemon cordial, once, when I was at my grandma's over the holidays, she gave me cookies and cordial, and I felt bad, but I couldn't eat them, so I gave the cookies to my owl, and but then wouldn't touch the cordial, so I had to drink it myself, I feel so bad though, my granny's eyesight isn't that well, and she lives way out in the country, so I can't visit her as much as I really should, which is so sad-" the one flaw, if there was such a thing, that Rachel had, was that she talked on and on about things no-one really cared about, well, Amelia did care about Rachel's grandma, I mean, Rachel adored her, and she grew up with her until her parents finally came back from France, and they pulled her into a car and drove away, locking her in one of those brand new apartment buildings, but as an apology for leaving her they bought her whatever she wanted, but Rachel was still deadly afraid that they ever found out what she'd become, they'd leave her again. And the thing about Rachel was that she had serious commitment issues. Especially with relationships of the intimate nature. But by intimate she meant sex. And if sex created some sort of relationship then she would be technically with half of the school. Truth was, as clichéd it was, she'd rather be the one leaving than the one being left. She couldn't be emotionally attached to someone. She'd tried. But she either got bored. Or she'd get so terrified that they'd find someone better. Though, there was no-one with as such wide blue eyes, or long doting eyelashes, or long, wavy blonde hair.

"RACH SHUT UP AND EAT THE PIZZA!" Sirius shouted, breaking the snogging session he'd started with Mary while Rachel had been talking away, in fact, during that period, everyone had started talking, Katie had come back, saying that Lily was getting changed, and soon enough, the tall red head girl walked in, and plonked herself on the floor, to everyone's surprise, not saying anything but taking a slice of pizza. Amelia waved slightly at her and she waved back with a strange look on her face. As if she was sick. Or tired. Or both. Amelia and James shared a concerned look, before he elbowed Sirius in the ribs, trying to break up the 'love fest' going on between Mary and Sirius. "James, mate, what was the deal we…" Sirius was cut off when he got a good look at Lily's unusually pale pale face. "Woah, Lily, what's up? Seriously, you look seriously…" he paused, not sure what to say next, Lily might look ill, but, for being the 'level-headed' and 'logical' one in the group, her temper was surprisingly variant. One moment she'd be as calm as the ocean at low tide, next moment she'd be like a hurricane, ready to hex you, or in extreme cases, slap you into oblivion. And Sirius Black was the only person she'd done both too. First time, she'd hexed him, was when he first cheated on Mary. Second time, when she slapped him a billion times, was when he accidently defaced a book from the library.

"I'm fine guys, seriously, this is just me after hours, after the recent events, the teachers have decided not to pile us mountain high with homework, and um, I just want to not do schoolwork tonight, and hang out with my friends…And Sirius…You know what, fuck homework!" Sirius' jaw dropped, Lauren's eyes went wide, and Amelia gave her friend a smug smile, it wasn't the first time she'd heard her friend swear, wouldn't be the last, but it was the first time Lily Evans had ever used the words 'fuck' and 'homework' in the same sentence. So that's how the afternoon went by, and even though the circumstances were quite grim, and as cheesy as this sounds, the group of them actually felt happy, well as close as each one of them could come, they laughed, they talked, Sirius even danced (it's up for debate whether that's a good thing or not) and maybe, during that time, each one of them had a moment where they forgot about the war outside their walls. Maybe they all felt a little better, and, in times like these a little goes a long way.

Amelia woke up, her eyes sliding open and she looked around, the floor of the Gryffindor Sixth Year Boy's Dorm piled high with a group of people fast asleep, fallen asleep in the circle they'd formed during their 'chaos'. Even Sirius Black was asleep, which was surprising, seeming as he was in the same room as Mary, and she sat up, looking around the place, before noticing the pale figure sitting across from her. His blank features looked as if he was deep in some sort of serious thought, before, like a robot, turning to face her, hazel eyes blinking away what she thought was tears. Like an instinct, she carefully got up, slinking into the space next to him and resting her head against his arm, not for comfort, but some sort of reassurance. While many had assumed that Edward Smith's and Amelia Bone's relationship was romantic, it was purely platonic, probably as platonic as you could get, without becoming friends with benefits.

"Why do you think we do it? Why do you think we sit though each other's bullshit? What do we gain? You can't say we become closer, or we even become friends. We don't really care about one another. We only act as if we care because we feel guilty that we naturally don't. Or we want to gain something from someone else. Look at us. We're all so fucked up. But we care about people. Do you really think anyone here actually cares about me?"

"I care about you Ed! Everyone here does! We have our quirky ways of showing it…" she shrugged, taking a deep breath, as much as she was close to Ed, she didn't know much about them, why they might be completely platonic, they didn't know much about each other, in fact, what they didn't know about each other was probably all the important bits. But they did know small, unique things about each other.

Amelia knew that Edward Oliver Smith's favourite colour was charcoal black, that he liked his pumpkin juice almost frozen, that his birthday was October Tenth, that he hated cats and the only one he could stand was Eloise, that he never tied his shoelaces, only tucked them in, that he didn't sleep till one in the morning then he would wake up at five then went for a run around the castle, and drink two cups of coffee and go by his day, his favourite band was Pink Floyd, he liked old books, but also the smell of new ones, he liked fictional characters and hated people in real life, his claim to Hogwarts fame was that he was the one that discovered Lola Cross shoved toilet paper down her bra, and he had absolutely no intention of living past the age of eighteen.

Edward knew that Amelia Susan Bones' ambition was to have some sort of ambition, that she liked milk chocolate and hated anything else, her favourite colour was sky blue, but it had changed recently, to darker one recently, she slept with three pillows, two under her head and one held into her chest, her favourite book was To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee, with a close second being Agatha Christie's Death On The Nile, she didn't use magic unless she had to, she didn't drink coffee but adored hot chocolate, she liked sweet better than sour, her favourite band was Fleetwood Mac, and her favourite song was Hello by The Beatles, and last but not least, she never did up the buckles on her shoe, leaving them undone, and Professor McGonagall had given up trying to get her to do them.

"Look at us, Amelia, look at all of us. Look at me, I want to die. I want to kill myself. I listen to depressing music and I don't talk to anyone unless they talk to me first, and you know what, no-one, no-one would give a fuck if I actually did it. They'd just feel bad for a day or two, a week at the most, and then everyone would go on with their lives, and they'd forget about me. These…These…assholes only know I exist because I sit next to you in History of Magic, and I always sit between you and them, like a barrier that keeps you apart from the rest of the world. You're my best friend, I suppose. And sure, even you'd be sad for a couple of days, maybe weeks, maybe a month, but after that you'll be fine. You'd be better actually. The world would be so much better without me…:" Amelia sat there dumbfounded, trying to find words to say something, but he just sighed continuing his speech, "And Eloise, look, Eloise is great. But she's fucking insane, she actually believes she's part cat, to the point where she sleeps like a cat, eats like a cat, walks like a cat, hell, she doesn't talk that much unless she's making some meowing noise. She's not a fucking cat! And Rachel, she fucks every guy who gives her the time of day, and she's so afraid of rejection she's turned herself into the rejecter. She's just trying to stop herself from feeling pain with the price of being seeing only as a sexual object, when she's more than that, so much more, yet she doesn't want people to get close to her? And Lauren, Lauren who's desperately in love with Remus Lupin because…because why? What does he have that appeals to her? What does anyone see in each other? James actually sets himself up for failure every time he asks Lily out, yet every time expects a different response. Lily needs to be the best at everything and if she's not, she'll destroy anything that stands in her way. Remus, Remus is a werewolf! How does he handle every day knowing what he is? Sirius and Mary, why do they continue to fuck each other, and with each other's head? What's the point? Katie…I don't know about Katie, She puts up with all our shit because…why? Peter, Peter just follows along blindly with all the things James and Sirius do, and for what?" And you, bloody hell Amelia, even before this term started, you were twice as fucked up as the rest of us. You don't believe in love. Seriously, I could list a hundred reasons why you're screwed up, but that's the main one. Do you see my point? Why are we, we broken people, drawn together, and why haven't we all killed ourselves yet? Are we too proud? What's wrong with us? What's so wrong with us we're willing to suffer through all this bullshit? Why are still living and breathing? Please, Amelia, give me some sort of answer, because I've been trying to figure it out for years, and I can't find an answer that helps me sleep at night. We do we suffer so much, and get so little in return, yet we keep going."

Amelia paused, chewing on her lower lip in thought, she was inclined to agree with him, but he was her friend, and he needed an answer to his problem, to the world's problem, but there wasn't such an answer to be found. There really was no reason why the world suffers and continues to suffer, with nothing positive to gain. But then she found a reason, and maybe this reason is the one that made her start to hold on to her life, maybe even fight for it. She stood up, brushing off her skirt, "I'm going for a walk." No, that wasn't her answer; in fact, she was trying to avoid giving him the answer because she knew he'd hate it. But as she headed for the door she knew she had to tell him, she had to give him some sort of motivation to keep on going. "It's because, we're not alone. I don't think we actually know how much we suffer, and I think we don't care, because we have each other, we have people around us that make the pain go away, and those people might go away but we always find new ones, new people to save us from ourselves. We all suffer, but we all suffer together, so really, the suffering isn't so bad anymore." She shrugged, turning to give him a small smile before walking out of the room.

Amelia looked up at the clear black night, at the almost full moon, knowing that in a couple of nights it would dangerous to come out here at all, with Moony's 'furry little problem' coming into full effect, while Padfoot, Prongs and Wormtail would be out here with him, it was still a wise choice to stay inside castle walls. But she enjoyed walking at night. More than a sixteen year old girl should. She had her wand on her though, and everyone in the school (some Slytherins from hands on experience) knew that she had one of the meanest hexes around. But still, walking around on a clear black night with shadows making everything look a little creepy made her slightly scared, but she still wondered out into the pitch black forest. Weaving her way through the trees and over logs, for once not slipping in any mud, before coming to the top of a hill, this was a strange hill, as it was almost vertical in the way it dropped, them it had a section where it was horizontally flat, then another drop into a deep ditch. And standing slightly to the side on what she assumed was a pathway Hagrid had made, was a person. A male person.

Regulus Black didn't like walking around at night. Not if he was forced to play watch out for whatever shit Scabior and Avery were planning, and he'd said about twenty times he wasn't going to be part of it. But they'd tricked him into this stupid thing, he didn't even know what they were doing, but he was sure it was something to terrify mudbloods, after all, wasn't everything they did meant to terrify someone. But the one plus side, was the thestrals. Thestrals are these beautiful type of creature that are assumed to be very rare, which they aren't, there was about a heard of forty living in Hogwarts alone. But the thing was that only people who had seen death could see them. And after the unfortunate events of the holidays, where his father had had a heart attack, either caused by Sirius' leaving or his mother's nagging, Regulus had been sitting in the room minding his own bloody business, when his old man collapses on the floor. Ever since he's been able to see these strangely beautiful creatures, which he doesn't mind, as they're his little secret from the rest of the world.

"Hello." He heard a voice call out from behind him, and he turned around, a pale face, bright red haired girl was looking at him look he's a fucking nutcase, but then he realized who it exactly is, Amelia Bones, he would say he has a weak spot for the girl, if he had such a thing, but this girl is the girl who goes out of his narrow path for, if she's in pain, or if she's almost freezing to death, and he's surprised she can't see the thestrals. She stood next to him, and he cast a glance over at her, and she's just stared at him right back, like she was trying to figure out what he's doing, "Um, I hate to sound rude and insensitive, but why the fuck are you holding your arm like that?" he laughed at her bluntness, he hasn't said a word to her yet, and he shook his head, and smiled at her.

"Close your eyes." He instructed, taking her hand and guided it out in front of her, and moving her hand to stroke the creature's head. She almost screamed when she felt the cold skin under her fingertips, and he tried not to laugh again. 'This is nice.' He thought, after a while, surprised at how blindly she trusted him. But all good things must come to an end, he hears voices behind him, the voices of Scabior and of Avery, there's nowhere to hide her, and he knows she won't lie to protect him, there's only one option.

"For the love of Merlin, please don't die." He muttered, as he pushed her off the cliff.

* * *

_AN: Why do all my chapters end with someone getting serious injured or killed?  
_Reviews would be amazing!  
_And I promise I won't hurt anyone in the next chapter, not physically anyway._  
_Also, just a note, I will be editing some of the earlier chapters as I reread them and didn't like them/found ways to improved them._  
_Love always,_  
_Alice_


	5. Romeo and Juliet Isn't A Love Story

_AN: Hello!  
Okay, so, I wrote the first half of this pretty much straight after the last one, then bloody writer's block attacked me so I started writing the next chapter. Then today, at nine in the morning, I gained some inspiration and five thousand odd words were written. So basically, this chapter is long and confusing.  
I don't own anything, everything belongs to my beloved JK Rowling._

* * *

Waking up in the hospital wing wasn't always a great start to the day. Especially when you have a massive bandage wrapped around your forehead, breathing hurts a surprising amount, there's something wrapped around your ankle and you've obviously been unconscious for a while, also when someone's pulled your bed sheet over your head like they do when someone's died. Either as some sort of joke or people actually believe you died. Slowly, though, even though her body ached so much she wanted to stay perfectly still, Amelia sat up slowly and painfully, wiping the sleep out of her eyes and looking around, noticing the nurse had noticed she'd woken and waved his wand at her, the pain disappearing quickly, and she mouthed a thank you back at the orderly. Just Lily and James were sitting by her bedside, James on one side, feet up on the bed to the side, Lily, on the other, nose apparently down in a book, so she didn't have to talk to the guy across from her, she couldn't help but laugh slightly, and they obviously were too busy giving each other greasy looks to notice she'd woken up. Eyes glancing over to the clock she'd realized why. It was just before noon, and both of them, actually the three of them, if she hadn't tripped down a ditch in the middle of the night, in the middle of the forbidden forest, which in hindsight, seemed one of the stupidest decisions she'd ever mad, and that included actually letting Eloise eat cat biscuits, the three of them should be in class, and seeming as Amelia had only gone to two days of classes in the past week, she wasn't exactly in good graces with the teachers. Obviously, James and Lily had had an argument about who should stay, and who should go to class and take notes for the both of them, but there was no point asking James to take notes, and he wouldn't use the six pages of notes Lily would have written. She'd also realized she'd been out for a day and a bit and probably missed a lot of shit, she was a teenage girl, and. But then James realized she was awake and happily, he jumped up in his seat.

"YOU'RE NOT DEAD! The dark haired young man yelled quite loudly, and Lily, of course, shushed him, but he just shrugged it off, giving her a tight hug. "You're not dead, you're not dead, you're not DEAD!" he chanted, hugging her for quite a long time, he'd been thinking, yes, shock horror, James Potter had been thinking, he'd been thinking about his life, about the people in his life, about the Marauders, about his other friends, about his love life, about his family, about his enemies. And he couldn't help but wonder if it was all worth it. Was it actually worth asking Lily out every day just to have the same answer every time? Maybe, just maybe, he was wrong about Lily, maybe there was someone else there for him. Maybe he had to take a chance, but he shrugged it off. "YOU'RE NOT DEAD!" he grinned at the hospitalized girl, poking her cheek with his finger, and the smile on her face was soon washed off, but it wasn't because of him, Lily Evans had her 'what-the-fuck-are-you-doing-you-twat' look on her face, and both Amelia and James knew, that wasn't good. "Brace yourself." He muttered in her ear before he was interrupted by a shrill noise.

"WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU THINKING WALKING IN THE FORBIDDEN FOREST AT NIGHT AMELIA FUCKING BONES? YOU COULD HAVE BEEN KILLED! ARE YOU FUCKING CRAZY OR SOMETHING? YOU COULD HAVE GOTTEN SERIOUSLY INJUIRED? WHY WEREN'T YOU WATCHING WHERE YOU WERE GOING? AND WHY DIDN'T YOU GO WITH SOMEONE? WHY DID YOU GO ALONE? WHY ARE YOU SUCH A CLUMSY SHIT? WHY DID YOU FALL OVER? YOU COULD HAVE DIED! OR ATTACKED! OR EATEN! OH MY FUCKING GOD AMELIA ARE YOU CRAZY?" the taller red head stood there and screamed her lungs out, before she finally finished, and gave her friend a look who smiled at her, Amelia tried not to burst out laughing, and James sniggered silently, "I'm so glad you're okay!" Lily sighed and hugged her, "You're so lucky you're not more hurt, the way they said you fell, and how you landed, you should have had a cracked skull, a few broken bones at least, but you only had that scratch on your head, and a few broken ribs…That can't be right though…Someone must have cast a healing charm or something on you, and your wand was missing-" thankfully, before Lily became any more aware of the events (mind you Amelia was pretty hazy on most of it, and James wasn't saying anything as he knew more than he was going to admit in front of Lily), the bell rang, and Lily literally ran out of the hospital wing, not bothering to say goodbye to either of them. The remaining two shared a look with each other, then with the attending nurse, striking an agreement that she'd be allowed to go to lunch, as long as she answered some questions beforehand.

_What was the last thing you remember? _That was the only question Amelia couldn't (didn't) want to answer, she remembered her talk with Ed, but mentioning that wouldn't be a great idea, but on the plus side the nurse could get Ed the help he needed, but she knew better than to assume he'd take it. She remembered leaving, and walking to the forbidden forest, and she remembered seeing someone-that was it. So, she explained this to the nurse, and he shrugged gruffly, it was obvious he was trying not to come to the same conclusion Lily had, she was a muggleborn witch, walking alone in the dark in a secluded area, what else was going to happen? She just said she couldn't remember, and the nurse grumbled some more but he let them go, but made James promise to bring her back.

* * *

James was surprisingly overprotective, to say the least. He wrapped his arm around her shoulder tightly, and every two second he looked at her bandage, making sure it hadn't started to bleed, and if any Slytherin happened to smile at her, he hexed them. So after a trail of Slytherin's lying on the floor in pain and several detentions soon coming James' way, the pair made it to the Great Hall, and as soon as they saw the events occurring in front of them, Amelia made a gagging noise, James actually gagged and vomited slightly in his mouth. Before them, was a scene that neither of them ever wanted to see, a scene neither of them ever thought they would see.

Romeo Martin, named after Romeo Montage, believed he was Merlin's gift to women. Though, most women actually believed, well they knew, he was Merlin's curse to them. He wore too much hair gel and didn't wash his hair enough. He had tanned skin which he thought made me irresistible. The tan was actually fake and made him look a carrot. He believed Romeo and Juliet was the greatest love story ever told. No-one had the heart to tell him that six people died because his namesake couldn't control his penis. Though, what mystified most people, was that he actually had a girlfriend all the time. Whether it was the same girlfriend the next day was up for debate. But right now, Romeo Martin was shoving his tongue down Lily Evans' throat, and even more to everyone else's amazement, she was letting him.

"What the actual fuck, James?" Amelia muttered, trying her hardest actually not to vomit, but when she turned around, James had gone. So she went looking for him, which wasn't that hard, as he'd just gone out into the Entrance Courtyard, and was sitting with his head in his hands, and in the garden he actually had vomited, and she cringed slightly, pulling out a handkerchief from her pocket and handing it to him, when he didn't take it she just rolled her eyes, "I'll actually wipe your mouth myself if you don't do it yourself." She muttered, and he grudgingly, took it, wiping his mouth and blowing his nose as well, hey, if someone was going to give him a handkerchief he was going to actually use it. The two sat in silence for a while, running one hand through her hair, though she did flinch when he finger accidently brushed against her 'battle wound'. After a while, which in reality was only five minutes but felt like an hour or two, she decided to say the one thing she knew would cheer James up. "Who do you think has more grease in their hair? Snape or Martin?" she asked turning to face him, and he gave her a grin, laughing, and Amelia took a sigh of relief.

"I don't actually know, Padfoot and I were going to do an experiment, but then Moony pointed out what exactly we were testing, so we both kind of grossed out." Amelia snorted, and James stood up, pulling her up with him. "You have the rest of the day off classes, yes? So, I can have the rest of the day off classes too, so we're going to hang out." Amelia was about to point out that the nurse had put her on curfew and that James actually didn't have the day off classes, but she realized this was James. There was literally no point on telling him about rule, seeming as the last thing James Potter cared about was rules. "Oh, come on Bones, it'll be fun, but I have Quidditch training at three, so you'll just have to bare the world without me for an hour and a half, then you get to spend more time with me again, and before you ask, tomorrow night's full moon so it's totally fine for me to hang out with you till the early hours of the morn', before you say anything, I totally know you're concerned about me because you, like everyone else, believes Lily and I were meant to be together, she can snog whoever she wants, I don't care, we're not going to end up with each other, because we're like fire and water. She's fire, I'm water. It wouldn't work. And I know I've spent five years trying to get her to go out with me, so I've wasted five years of my life on nothing. She can be Romeo's Juliet for all I care; she's the one who's going to die if they go by that storyline. Are either of them aware that Romeo and Juliet isn't a love story?" Amelia sat there, one eyebrow raised, slightly, actually she was very confused, as it wasn't like James at all, but Edward's words rang clear in her mind, _he sets himself up for failure_, she'd bluntly refused to believe that, even if it was becoming more and more obvious it was true. Reminding herself she hadn't seen Ed since she'd tripped down that ditch, though more and more she thought about it she actually hadn't tripped, wouldn't she still have her wand on her if she'd tripped? And wouldn't have someone found it by now? Plus, she'd fallen down flights of stairs twice as small as that and she'd broken her arm, so how was that… The world was a strange place, she had decided, and all these things, were just weird coincidences. Right?

"Um, sure, James, yeah." She nodded along slowly, raising an eyebrow at him again, wondering if he actually meant all the things he just said, but James Potter had a 'no lying' policy, unless you had to lie to teachers or Slytherins, then it was perfectly fine, but hexes were preferred to lies (not to teachers though), or of course, if you absolutely had to lie, it was okay. When people found out about his 'no lying' policy, they were rather surprised, as most, without getting to know him, thought of James Potter as a dishonest man, when the truth was, all the shit he talked about doing, he actually did. It was quite amazing he hadn't died yet. Maybe, Amelia had often thought, he had some sort of death wish, not that she was one to talk though. She stood up, linking arms with the taller boy, giving him a large smile, before she saw someone come towards the pair and she gave them a small smile.

One of the many miracles of Hogwarts was why didn't Billie Jean get sorted into Slytherin, she was ambitious, she was cunning, she was resourceful, and she would destroy anyone who got in her way, the only reason she got into Ravenclaw instead was that she was a half-blood, and didn't really give a fuck either way about people's blood status. Amelia quite liked Billie, though she was never sure the feeling was mutual, but then again, Billie had once openly said she'd cross her own mother to get what she wanted. Billie had long orange hair, and stormy grey eyes, and the way she held herself screamed pretentious, though she wasn't really pretentious at all, she was incredibly intelligent, and incredibly aware she was smart. "Oi, Bones." The girl called out, completely ignoring the Gryffindor standing next to the shorter girl, "Heard you fell and whacked your head, what motivated you to that?" the new arrival shrugged, and Amelia laughed softly at her, the best thing about Billie was that she completely agreed on Amelia's stance on guys, especially how stupid they were. The Ravenclaw girl finally recognised James' existence, by giving him a stink eye. "Is that why you're hanging with this one?"

"Yes, I bumped my head and had all sense knocked out of me." Amelia grinned, gaining a rare laugh out of the other girl, "I'm like Alice in Wonderland, or Sherlock in Reichenbach." (Billie was the one that made her read Sherlock.) She looked over at James, who looked more confused than Wormtail in Potions, "Muggle books, James, didn't you read Alice through the Looking Glass for Muggle Studies last year?" she asked, and James shook his head slowly, obviously clueless to what the two were talking about, and as if he would actually read a book for class.

"That's assuming he can read, Bones, well, I have class, you obviously aren't going, and before you ask Bones, I'm not taking notes for you in History of Magic, okay?" the Ravenclaw walked away, and Amelia gave James another smile, linking arms with him again and with sudden forcefulness, he started to lead her somewhere, she wasn't sure why, or what he wanted to do, but he led her back into the castle, up the stairs, and pulled her into a random hallway, a second year Hufflepuff about to say something but James shushed them, and Amelia gave the youngster a thumbs up, while she mumbled something at James, that sounded a lot like son of a witch, but James still didn't say a word, quite rare when someone called him that particular insult, but he still didn't say a word, and over ten minutes, and several staircases and secret passageways, this was extremely unusual, because it meant one of two things, either he was upset, which was bad, or he was thinking, which was about fifty times worse. Amelia kept her fingers crossed that it was the first one, as it wasn't James' usually prank thinking, he did that with Sirius and aloud. It was his emotional thinking that he kept quiet, and it scared Amelia, too much, James Potter was loud, he said what he was thinking and he did what he said. He smiled too much and drank too much caffeine, he barely ever slept and he preferred to be in his Animagus form than his human form. He was indifferent to cats and dogs, but he liked guineapigs over the both (Remus had bought one for him for his seventeenth birthday), he had a soft spot for sunflowers, and for lilies (or Lily Evans in particular, well, until he gave the younger red head his big speech). He liked summer, spring and autumn and didn't like winter. He didn't read much but when he did actually open a book he read Quidditch Through The Ages (with his own additions and notes though), and he liked watching muggle films, his favourite being The Wizard Of Oz, but if anyone ever said this, he would deny it (and yes, he knew all the words to Somewhere Over The Rainbow).

"James Potter! Stop with the silent treatment! I demand…answers? Or, I'll scream bloody murder I swear-" James chuckled and covered the girl's mouth, and continued to drag her along, before they came to where he was looking for, a cramped broom cupboard that, without a wand, locked from the outside, and Amelia didn't have her wand, so he pushed her inside and closed the door behind him, and the lock clicked into place, keeping the two in the cramped place. "JAMES POTTER! What the actual fuck is going on? Shagging in broom closets doesn't work like this…I'm pretty sure it doesn't, what would I know?"

"Wow, um, Amelia, I don't want to…Anyways, we're going to talk, and no I'm not hinting at anything, but still, we're going to talk. About feelings and stuff, because I care about you, quite a bit actually, and you, you haven't said a word about your family. Which isn't normal, and I know that Lily and Lauren, hell, even Katie has tried to talk about it with you, and you shut them down, and they have too much respect of you to push it, or in Lauren's case, too scared you'll stop talking to her all together, but I'm different. And it's not because I'm a bloke. Yes, that may be the defining feature, as I have a penis and they don't." Amelia raised an eyebrow at this, a look of confusion and disgust spread on her face, '_I don't really want to know about your penis…James.' _She wanted to say out loud, but before she could he continued. "I know how you work. And I know, you're not okay. You let someone push you off a hill! Usually you would slap that person in the face! And don't say you fell. You obviously didn't. You trusted someone enough to let your guard down, something which you haven't done for anyone before, and then they pushed you down a hill! You, Amelia Bones, are fucking crazy. You might say you hate feelings, you might call them stupid, but that doesn't mean you don't have them. In fact, I believe you have more than you ever let anyone know."

"_Memento Mori_." She mumbled as she looked up into James' brown eyes, it was nice, that he cared, but she didn't want talk about it, at all, mostly because, there was nothing to say about it, her family were gone, there was nothing she could do to change that, nothing she could do but move on, and revisiting it would just give her more and more unneeded pain. That was the last thing she needed. The pain would sit there, unnoticed, until it finally disappeared. She could learn to live with a heavy heart; it couldn't possibly be that hard. But it could, her heart was just get heavier and heavier over time, until she couldn't take it anymore, and she would have to give in. Also, James obviously didn't understand Latin, as he was staring at her like she was insane. Quite possibly because she was. But while his intentions were strange and quite un-James Potter like, he would still carry them out, James Potter was known for his persistence. Among other things. "It's Latin; it loosely translates to _Remember You Will Die_. Everyone's going to die someday, James, some people will die before others; it's the one thing in life you can't avoid."

"But you're not dead. Your family is. Your sisters, your brother, your mum and dad. They're gone Amelia. You won't ever see them again. You must have some sort of feeling about that. You can't avoid that. No matter how much Latin you speak, or you let some 'stranger' push you down a hill, you can't deny that. Yes, they were going to die someday, just like you & me, but it doesn't mean they just leave and life goes on. There are consequences." He paused, letting his words sink in, but the red head looked annoyed, upset, even slightly angry, it was hard to tell, her 'anger' was masked but annoyance, that would usually end up in some sort of short, sharp (and sometimes painful to the other person) outburst, "Wow, I am actually speaking a fuck load of some sort of logic for a change, but still, you know what I do every day? I wake up at the crack of dawn and go up to the owlery, making sure my parents have sent their daily letter, because I know if they haven't, some has gone drastically wrong. My father works in Magical Law Enforcement, he went to your house, and he sent me…this…" he pulled a photograph out of his pocket, it covered in some sort of dust and smudged with fingerprints, and Amelia smiled softly, biting down on her lower to lip to stop herself from crying, Christmas, last year. Iris and Irene were standing in the middle, a lot shorter than the rest of them and pulling stupid faces, Iris wearing one of her mother's stupidly overlarge hats, her eyes covered, and Irene's face was smudged with her mother's lipstick. Her mother looked like her normal, noble, beauty queen self. Looking regal, with a slight tone of disgust in her face, but her eyes mostly trained with the overwhelming look of love at her husband. Her husband, on the other time, was grinning insanely, chin peaking and hair starting to turn grey but he still resembled that handsome man of his youth, that his son looked so much like him. Matthew was a handsome young man, whose looks were great, sure, they were grand, but his personality made him someone irresistible. He was smiling, a wide toothy grin plastered on his face, his hair in an organized mess, giving a piggy back to his younger sister.

"Happy…" she mumbled, soft tears rolling down her cheeks, and for once, she didn't even bother to try and wipe or blink them away. "So very happy…" her salty tears hit the photograph, the ink starting to blotch and she put it in her pocket, before she destroyed the remainder of true happiness, but soon sadness turned into anger, and like a firecracker the fuse had been lit, and an explosion was coming. "You want to know how I feel?" her voice was suddenly harsh, "I'm angry! My world and their world were never meant to collide. They were murdered because of me. Because of me and my blood. It's a shitty world out there, but that world was never meant to affect them. They were innocent, well, maybe Iris and Irene weren't completely innocent, but they were children, they had no chance against death eaters, even my brother and my father couldn't protect themselves. And you know what their dying thought was? That it was all my fault. I killed them, James. I did it." And with what Amelia Bones collapsed into the open arms of James Potter. He was right. He always was. That was probably the most irritating quality about him. Seeming as if he actually wasn't right, he would change things to make himself right. He made some sort of soothing sound, but stopped when a blotchy, red faced Amelia gave him a look, tears still rolling down her cheeks. "I miss them so much…" he nodded, letting her bury her face in his chest, at least she wasn't pretending she wasn't in pain now, that was good, he guessed.

"Hey, it's going to be alright, it is, Amelia? Amelia?" the girl had worn herself out so much she'd fallen asleep, in a standing up position. How was that even possible? He chuckled softly, finding a step and sitting on it, letting the girl drop into his lap, her head still resting against his now very damp chest. He'd been acting strange lately. Was being Head Boy starting to rub off on him? Was James Potter finally starting to grow up? In his mind, he'd grown up the second his hormones started to kick in. Was this the third stage of growing up no-one ever told him about? There was being a kid, being a hormonal teenager, to being a person? Was he now some sort of person who liked other people? Who wanted to make them feel happy with no benefit for himself? And he was curious. He actually enjoyed making people happy, even if he actually hadn't made Amelia happy, he had made her sad, angry, then sad again, then made her pass out from crying too much, which meant, maybe (hopefully) she'd be happier sooner. If only the world worked like that… He spent the next hour playing with her hair, occasionally poking her face and checking her pulse, her breath quite light (but still ticklish) on his chest, and he was thanking Merlin he actually wasn't ticklish, it just made him laugh a little. "I have Quidditch training in fifteen minutes." He said aloud, after a while, the redhead hadn't moved, though she still had a pulse, and he wasn't going to let her lie in here for the rest of the night. "Bones, wake up." He muttered, poking her in the face again softly, "Amelia, wake up." Then, James smirked, leaning down, aiming to press his lips against hers.

"Your breath stinks." The girl muttered, one eye open, a faint trace of a smile on her features. "Seriously," she said a little louder, waving her hand in front of her nose. "Also, why were you about to kiss me?" James covered this up with a laugh, letting her sit up on the bottom step, while he stood up, and started to head towards the door.

"Amelia Bones, you must be seeing things." He chuckled, opening the door, and walking out, before turning around, giving her his trademark crooked grin. "See you in two hours, Bones? Don't die of boredom without me." He left, and Amelia sighed, running her hand through her hair. Maybe her heart didn't feel so heavy after all. But of course, she had her friends to distract her; in fact, if she combined everyone's drama together, it was more than a normal person could cope. And more was to come. As she wondered down to the Hufflepuff Common Room, before someone bolted into her, grabbing her by the shoulders and turning her around.

"AMELIA!" the visitor yelled in her ears and she cringed slightly, still affected slightly by sleep. _Why the yelling? _She thought, but the person standing in front of her never yelled, let alone raised his voice, so she knew it was important. Remus Lupin never yelled. And he knew it, he also knew that the girl he was yelling at was half asleep, but situations like these needed yelling, and raised voices. Remus Lupin didn't know how it happened. He was studying…And then THIS! Smack bang in the middle of the face! So he did what he thought James would do, but in reality, he had done what Sirius would have done, he ran, sprinted away. He did feel bad for leaving like that, but what else was he supposed to do? "Have you seen James?"

"Quidditch." She just said, shrugging, wiping sleep out of her eyes, "Why the yelling Remus?" Amelia wasn't quite sure what her friendship with Remus was. They were friends. But were they good friends? Or great friends? Or best friends? He let her have his last year's Charms' notes (and was the only reason she was passing that class). She made up excuses for him when his 'furry little problem' came into effect. And now he was dragging her into an abandoned classroom, muttering something about how she'd do, "If this is an experiment find someone else." She said, as Remus let go of her hand and started pacing up and down the classroom, a teacher who was correcting some papers getting up and leaving, and Amelia mouthed a 'thank you'. "Remus Lupin…Moony...?" she said, her eyebrow furrowing in confusion, but was ignored, Remus had started talking to himself, nothing recognisable. "Moony, what's up?" he took a deep breath, turning to face her.

"Lauren told me she loved me." Amelia had to avoid a smile; she had been waiting for this for quite a while, and gave herself a reminder to give Lauren some congratulations. But, even for someone as cynical as her, she always thought that Remus would say it back...So why was he standing there having a hissy fit? "We were just sitting there, studying, and I was helping her with a questions and she just goes and says it! I know. I know you're her friend, and I am too, but that's all I am. That's all I ever can be…With me being me…She's lovely, really…But what does she see in me? I can't tell her I love her back, because I don't, because then…" he shook his head, and continued his walking back and forth up the classroom. "What do I do?"

"Remus, have you ever thought that she doesn't care…?" that made him stop in his tracks, and he turned to face her, confusion clearly spread on his face. "She loves _you,_ Remus. She obviously finds something in you she adores, and she obviously assumes that your problem is the entire you, she wants to be with you Remus, is that really so hard to understand? The thing about Lauren is that she falls in love easily, and when she falls she falls hard, and I don't think I've ever seen someone so in love than with her in you. And honestly, unless you see something wrong with Lauren, you really shouldn't be talking to me and you should be snogging her."

"Wow, I didn't the 'love is stupid' speech, everything okay Amelia?" he laughed, but he was still obviously nervous, but Amelia, being so un-Amelia like, gave him a supportive smile, and a thumbs up, "I'll have to talk to James and Sirius though, you know, get a bloke's perspective, of course." He grinned, about to continue his sentence with something he thought Amelia should know, something that she wasn't meant to know, something that she probably would be better off not knowing, not in a bad way, but it would make her curious, and the problem with Amelia being curious is that she will keep digging at something till she knows all. "See you around, Amelia, have a nice life, have fun, all the crap. Later." He walked away and Amelia sighed, going back to making her way towards the Common Room, when she realized she was frightfully hungry. Instead of turning down a corridor she continued going down the stairs, wondering into the Great Hall. She slipped into a seat, not close to anyone, but not far away from everyone either. Plus, it was impossible to be alone at Hogwarts.

"Amelia!" Yep, it was impossible for Amelia to be alone. The person who wanted her attention was an annoyingly tall, perfectly skinny, perfectly tanned skin fifth year by the name of Juliet Isabelle Martin, and yes, she was the sister of the git who was snogging Evans earlier that day. Juliet preferred to be called Isabelle, rather than Juliet, as she had more brain cells than her brother and knew that Romeo and Juliet was kind of a weird story, plus, she didn't really want people to know she was related to him. Isabelle was a perfectly beautiful girl who was average in every way but her looks. She was kind, but she could mean. She got A's (acceptable) in every one of her subjects, apart from Ancient Runes where she got an E (exceeds expectations). She didn't play Quidditch, but still went to every game, and she was friends with most of the school. Most people assumed that in the DNA game her brother got all the shitty bits and she got all the nice bits, and that was probably true, but seeing the two in the same room made it hard to believe they were related in any way. Amelia and Isabelle were kind of friends, they said hello to each other when they passed in the hallways, but that was it. In fact, this was the first time they had actually talked alone together.

"Isabelle, hi, what's up?" Amelia shrugged, taking a sip of her pumpkin juice (she actually hated pumpkin juice but she drank it anyway) and turning to face the taller girl, who's Ravenclaw robes were too big (and short enough to show the world she had perfect legs), even though they were size small; she really should have gotten size extra small, but when she tried the robes on, a Slytherin by the name of Bellatrix Black came in and Isabelle was in a rush to leave, after her encounter with the girl in third year, Isabelle had been terrified to death of her (Amelia knew there had been an incident, the whole school knew, but Isabelle hadn't said a word about it, in fact, if anyone ever happened to know any details about it, it was because of Bellatrix's bragging, that incident, was also the way Regulus Black discovered he might have been walking down the wrong track in his path of life decisions), so Isabelle had scribbled the size and not bothered to come back.

"Nothing much, Amelia, just a load of homework, I heard about your parents, I'm so sorry by the way." Isabelle gave the redhead a sympathetic smile which Amelia returned with the slightest twitch of her lips. "I wanted to ask you about…my brother…and Evans… I know you and your boyfriend saw them before…And I was wondering…Are you two okay with that? I mean, I pretend not to know my brother because, you know, he's a grade a git, but Evans is a nice girl, and I don't know what to feel about her and my brother…"

"Sharing saliva?" Amelia suggested, raising an eyebrow, when she noticed something Isabelle had said…_boyfriend_…James…boyfriend…"Wait, hold up, James and I aren't together, no, we're not boyfriend and girlfriend…We're friends, that's all, just friends, nothing else." Her denial sounded a lot like the denial Lily used to use whenever James asked her if she was still friends with Severus Snape…Which reminded Amelia that she hadn't seen Snape in a while, though her life could go on perfectly without him, but Lily was her friend and Lily was best friends with Snape. Or was. Last year Snape had called Lily a mudblood (though he said he didn't mean to, but then again, Katie had convinced Lily that if he hadn't meant to, he wouldn't have done so), and they'd stopped talking, or Amelia hadn't seen them talked since. It was Isabelle's turn to raise her eyebrow, the (only) problem with Isabelle, was that she adored gossip, not because it made her the centre of attention, but because, secretly, she adored having power over people. Information would always go through her, and she was the filter, the boring shit, like Professor Anderson and Professor Williams are fucking, would go straight through her and down the line, but the juicy things, the interesting things, she usually kept to herself, like Lola Cross stuffs her bra full of toilet paper, or indecently, Amelia Bones and James Potter are dating, stay inside of her brain, until, she feels fit to release them. For better or for worse. And it was fishing tricks like those that gave her her 'candy'. In fact, Juliet Isabelle Martin, was possibly the most powerful person at Hogwarts, and the worst bit? She knew it.

From the table behind them, someone stood up sharply, and stormed out of the Great Hall, muttering and swearing to himself, stomping down the stairs to the dungeons, going to his common room. "Stupid fucking Potter. Stupid blood traitor filth. How dare he… How dare he…" this person was in such a rage that they forgot to hex the Hufflepuff third year coming out from detention, in fact, he was so angry, that he forgot the irony of calling Potter blood traitor filth when he couldn't (wouldn't) call her a mudblood. He was so worked up, that in fact, when he marched into the common room, he bumped into Severus Snape, who was confused to as why someone other than him might be muttering those words.

"That's bullshit. If you aren't dating him you obviously like him…" Isabelle batted her eyelids, which made Amelia blush brighter red, have you ever had someone ask you something, or suggest something about you, that wasn't true, but you blush because of what they're suggesting? That was happening to her right now, and she wanted to hex whoever decided that that was a way of saying yes. Truth was though, Amelia didn't know how she felt about James Potter. She did know he was one of her best friends. She didn't know if he was anything more (mind you more was something Amelia didn't really understand, and therefore want, apart from her incidents with the mysterious stranger, and she wanted more of those that didn't up with her unconscious). She did know that he was attractive. She didn't know if she attracted to him. She did know he made her laugh when no-one else could. She didn't know why he wasn't with Lily who was so obviously the perfect fit for him. And that was the issue of having feelings for James Potter. She'd always felt like she be taking something that belonged to Lily. But now she had someone else (Romeo Martin might have been a total git but she knew Lily well enough to know they had to be dating), so, it couldn't be that bad if she and James… And it wouldn't be love. Love didn't exist. And while she had planned on a relationship free life, she hadn't planned for what had happened in the past month. Amelia Bones was currently in free-fall. And that's what scared her the most.

"He's attractive, okay?" she shrugged, this conversation was too girly (and it was weird talking to someone who she barely knew but that was better than having this conversation with Lily or anyone else) "But, fair's fair, that milk pitcher..." Amelia pointed to the pitcher sitting in front of a group of first years, "Is attracted to James Potter. James Potter is a very attractive guy." She stood up, checking the clock on the wall, she was due to meet him in thirty minutes, and she wanted to have something to eat beforehand, and seeming as Isabelle, who was unusually interested in plain old her, wasn't going to leave her alone, she had to go and eat outside. She picked up two slices of toast, and wrapped them up in a napkin, "I've got to go see someone, see you around Martin." The redhead shrugged and walked away, and the black haired girl turned to her friend sitting at the Slytherin table, penning them a note.

_You were right._

Sitting on the bench outside of the Gryffindor locker rooms, Amelia happily at her toast in silence, as no-one bothered to talk to her, and if they did she would just motion to her full mouth, and they would walk off anyway. She'd been thinking. Dangerous thinking. The kind where she started to question her beloved and sacred beliefs. Will, until, someone started talking to her. "Bones." The pale Slytherin made a feeble attempt of a smile at her; Regulus Black didn't like…people. It was just a well-known fact within the Slytherin House and the school. If he was by himself, you would leave him alone, if he wanted to talk to you, he would come and talk to you. The only people allowed to break this unspoken rule was his family (he still counted Sirius as family, but there was very little chance that Sirius would talk to him again And between you and me, he could go without Bella's attempts at conversations. Which were usually about mutilation of muggles), and her, but she had no idea whatsoever. He preferred to be left alone, or be with one select person. And after the events that happened two days ago, he'd gone through a severe self-hatred circle, as he did push her, and he just left her there. Possibly dying. And he also took her wand. But he did push her to _save_ her, because, if they'd found her near their plans, they would have hurt her so much worse than a tiny scratch on the head. But she seemed perfectly fine now. But her eyes told him she knew perfectly well it was him, and he sighed, pulling out her wand from his pocket and placed it in her hand. Her eyes were wide, and her hand froze, and she looked up at him and he tried to give her a small smile. And when that didn't work, he did something else. Something so much worse (but if you asked him if he would take it back he wouldn't in a million years) he leant down and place a soft kiss on her cheek. As soon as he appeared he disappeared again, leaving a very speechless Amelia Bones siting there in shock.

"Hey, Lia." James sat next to her, noticing her wand resting in her hand, he looked at her in confusion, waving his hand in front of her face, "Have you been hit by a stunning spell or something? You look seriously out of it." She shook her head slowly, turning to give him a small smile, and he grinned back (that stupid crooked grin) as he wrapped his arm around her shoulder, and pulled her slightly closer, and she got a better, clearer look at him. Saying James Potter was attractive was an understatement. Saying he was ridiculously good looking was a bit closer to the truth. He had dark brown eyes that gleamed with mischief, scruffy brown hair that no matter how much he tried he couldn't tame it (but he thought that people who put too much stuff in their hair were pretentious douches aka Romeo Martin), and he had the sort of smile that made you smile as well. And in the fading sunshine he looked even better. And Amelia, being human, felt her cheeks grow red. "Are you flustered? Do you have a fever?" he asked, pressing his hand against her forehead. His hand slipped down to cup her cheek, the pad of his thumb wiping against her lip.

And soon enough his lips followed.

* * *

_AN: Okay, some of the events in this chapter I don't like, but they have to happen for everything to work out nicely._

_Next chapter will be involve all the characters (and some new ones and some canon favourites) yay! Sirius will be sneaking his way into it, I can assure you of that._

_Also, fun story- I do Philosophy as a subject in school, and my teacher taught us the phrase 'Memento Mori', and a guy in my class said it sounded like a Harry Potter spell, so my teacher full on acted it out. And my teacher is the human equivalent to Professor Flitwick so..._

_Love always,_

_Alice_


	6. Lonely Hearts Club

_AN: Hi! Hello! Good morning/afternoon/evening/night/whatever!  
This chapter took a while, but I like it...I think.  
I swear every one of my chapters gets longer and longer...Opps...  
Well, enjoy! Reviews mean Regulus Black lives.  
Love always,  
Alice._

* * *

_January to December, do you want to be a member?_

First kisses are weird.

Kissing is weird.

Having someone kiss you is weird.

Kissing someone back is weird.

Wait…she was kissing back? Before Amelia had come to her senses, it had actually been quite nice…kissing…James. He was warm, soft and gentle, surprisingly so, actually. His hands were pressed against her waist, and her own sat frozen in her lap. And while it didn't feel right, it didn't feel wrong either, it was probably somewhere in the middle, between 'I probably shouldn't be doing this' and 'Well, it won't if I do this, will it?', so she was tossing up between the two, and which one she was going to act upon. She was kissing James…And weren't James and Lily were meant to be together forever? Even if they didn't know it yet. And Lily was one of her best friends, and while she might not have known that she was in love with James Potter, she still would have got jealous, and never talk to Amelia again, and if anyone else was going to do that, Amelia wouldn't mind, but if Lily did it? She would actually follow through with it. Lily's friendship meant more than James Potter (snogging her) did. But Lily was also shoving her tongue down the throat of Romeo Martin. So, that was the most likely reason he was snogging her_…Wait…_What the fuck was happening? And for the record, she did not like kissing James Potter at all (actually she loved it but good luck trying to get her to admit it).

"No…" she muttered, pulling away sharply, much to James' disappointment, but he still smiled up at her, his eyes slightly wide, but not as wide as hers. "No…James…No…Lily…and…other things…no…." she shook her head slowly, not sure at what, but for appearances sake, it was directed at him. She wasn't angry, and she wasn't livid, which usually was when she wasn't angry, but she wasn't happy (she'd long established that that was an impossibility), but she wasn't sad. Was it a mix of all of above? Or something new entirely? Anyone else would have given up on trying working out her feelings, but Amelia had to know what they were, each one of them, mostly to squash them before they grew into something. Feelings were a curse people inflicted on themselves to justify the world's cruelty. To put some worth on pain. She had stubbornly decided she wasn't going to all prey to that _bullshit, _Amelia Bones had decided (but it should be noted she hadn't thought this through awfully well) that she would never, ever fall prey to her emotions. No matter what the situation or how cute the boy was, she wasn't going to fall. Not in love. Not in hate (which was basically the other side of love). Not in lust (but lust could hardly be called an emotion). She wasn't going to have those petty feelings that made everyone else fall on their knees.

But, like with everything, she was wrong.

* * *

_Two and a half days later._

"I hate men." Lauren Isaac announced to everyone sitting at the Gryffindor Table that morning at quarter past seven in the morning. Which wasn't a whole lot, just Amelia and a third year called Richard who was busily trying to finish his Potions essay (he'd been thinking aloud so loudly and annoyingly Amelia had penned him the notes he needed so he could get to writing the essay and shut up). There were other people too, but they weren't important, most only just raised an eyebrow at her outburst, it was well known to everyone that she was in love (lust) with Remus Lupin, and she was the kind of girl who believed fairy tales really did exist, and that happened to everyone. "I hate them. I hate them. I hate them. You tell them a simple statement and then they-they run away! Who does that?" the brunette poured herself a drink of water, spilling half the jug on the table, but the table was surprisingly dry (Richard's notes were not though, and with a huff and a glare from the usually cheery girl, he ran out of the Great Hall), and she gulped it down, taking a deep breath.

"In his defence, saying I love you isn't really a simple statement. But I do agree that his running away was a stupid idea." Amelia shrugged, cutting up a piece of bacon into neat little squares, not even her would look up into the obvious fuming gaze she was most certainly getting from Miss Isaac right now. _Right,_ _'Operation Calm down Lauren Isaac' is now in operation._ "Lauren, have you ever noticed that Remus Lupin is a bit of a strange bloke?" _Oops. _Lauren's mouth dropped open, either in shock or in anger, with the redhead's fingers crossed under the table that it was the first one, but then again, anger was an emotion Amelia was pretty sure Lauren had never felt before. "What I mean is…He likes History of Magic…" History of Magic was actually one of Amelia's favourite subjects, but knowing that wouldn't help Lauren's situation at all. "He prefers dark chocolate to milk chocolate, he doesn't drink butterbeer, but firewhiskey instead, yet he very rarely gets hammered from it. And most of all…He didn't tell you he loved you back. Remus Lupin is a very strange bloke who must be off his head not to be in love with you back-"

"I hate men." Rachel McGuiness, the pretty blonde haired girl sat in the seat next to the brunette, grumbling and mumbling on about some boy, "They're big fat douches who…" Rachel, not sure where that sentence was going, but then glanced over at her brown haired companion and shook her head. _No…That can't be…_ Not daring to finish that sentence she changed the ending, hopefully making it slightly believable (it had actually happened last night, but it wasn't something she got worked up over, not in public anyway), "I wanted to say thank you to that Adam Morris guy who gave me the box of chocolates last week… You know, tall, handsome-"

"Everyone you _thank_ is tall and handsome, Rach." Amelia reminded the other girl, taking another slice of toast and spreading a thick layer of strawberry jam onto it. Adam Morris was actually short and skinny, so skinny that he looked like he would break, but he was quite handsome, well sort of, handsome enough for Rachel to thank, apparently. She looked up, taking a bit of her toast, an eyebrow just being raised to the glare she was getting from the other two. "Anyway, please continue your thriller of a story, Rachel."

"Well, Morris and I were snogging, like proper snogging, full tongue, totally frenched up, you know the sort." Amelia shook her head and was about to say something but she decided against it. Her friends didn't know about the events that happened with James Potter, in fact, James Potter's absence from hanging around them was suspected because of recent actions from Lily, and Amelia, not sure what to say about the matter, had decided to keep quiet (and the events with the 'mysterious stranger' had not been forgotten too, but instead pushed aside), "Well, it was real snogging, like I was on top of him, and his arms were on my waist, and then, guess what he did?" The redhead was about to say 'vomited' but again, the blonde continued talking, "He breaks the kiss and then starts feeling me up and..." Luckily for the blonde, who was running out of things to pull out of her ass (her and Adam Morris had snogged last night, they had actually done a lot more than that and it had been nice. Sort of. Adam let her sleep in his bed and folded up her clothes and placed them on his bedside table for her in the morning, with a bottle of water and an aspirin. How sweet.), but a teary eyed and blotchy faced Mary McDonald sat next to Amelia, sniffling and wiping her eyes again. The unenviable had happened. Mary and Sirius had broken up after three weeks, a new record for the both of them.

"I hate men." The girl sighed, holding her spoon menacingly, "I want ice cream." She said loudly, and sure enough, a massive bowl of ice cream appeared on her plate. The best thing about house elves was that you could ask for basically anything for breakfast, and they would give it to you. Sirius had once asked for medium rare sauce with garlic sauce, sautéed in red wine, with roast potatoes and pumpkin, and a large glass of brandy. And he got as he wished (the house elves had put a charm on the brandy to reverse the alcoholic effects though). "Sirius Black is a git and I'm…"

"Done with him. Won't ever give that dick the time of day again. I was a virgin when I met him. He's not even that good looking actually now that I think about it." The three other girls continued in a sing-song voice, all giving Mary a grin, as much as they liked Sirius, sure, when he wasn't being an ass, Sirius was a very likeable lad, he had a good sense of humour, and didn't care about the finer things in life, such as blood status or schoolwork. "He wasn't even a good shag; he's all me-me-me in the bedroom department." In Sirius' defence, he actually wasn't like that with Mary, but with any other girl that came though his sheets, yes he was. Mary sat there, slightly dumbfounded, before taking a large spoonful of her ice-cream, this scoop with mint chocolate, with rich chocolate sauce and little flakes of chocolate.

"Seriously, though, Sirius Black is an asshole, Mary, and you can do so much better, in fact, I'm pretty sure Saturday's a Hogsmeade weekend, so, we'll get you a date, you'll look your usual fabulous self, and you'll forget all about him. I promise on my cat. And by my cat I mean Eloise." Rachel grinned at the other blonde. Peter Pettigrew just happened to walk past of them and chose the wrong moment to try and sit with the girls, "Peter, nice to see you, but we're having a girl talk. So please leave." Rachel said with a slightly sharp tone, with made the sandy haired boy stand up suddenly, slightly shocked, he pushed a piece of parchment towards the redhead, before scampering of somewhere. "What's that Amelia?" Rachel pointed at the piece of parchment and Amelia pulled it towards her slipping it into her pocket, fingers secretly crossed underneath the table that she wouldn't have to. At that exact moment, Lily Evans came basically skipping into the Great Hall, whistling a tune happily and she slipped into the seat next to Lauren, unaware to the looks she was getting.

"Morning-"

"NO!" Everyone screamed at once, and Lily raised her arms in defence, not even four angry sixteen slash seventeen year olds could bring down her happiness. Or so she thought. She happily helped herself to a piece of toast, spreading marmalade on the slightly burnt slice of bread. She took a bite thoughtfully, wondering why all her friends were staring at her. And with Amelia and Rachel she was pretty obvious they had a look of disgust in their face. Lauren looked extremely confused and Mary was shoving her face with ice cream. Then, Lily Evans realized. They knew. While, she didn't really want her friends to find out about Romeo Martin, in fact, she had no idea what she and Romeo were. She knew how they 'got together', but she didn't understand how they actually got together and became a couple. All she knew was that Romeo acted like he wanted her. And, it was nice to feel wanted. So she said yes, when he asked if they were official, and it'd been like that ever since. On the front of telling her friends, she'd never assumed it would last any more than a day, maybe two, but it was a week and a half and he called her 'baby' every time they saw each other. It was nice. She guessed.

"You know about Romeo and me…I'm assuming…." She raised an eyebrow and the other redhead nodded, her face still scrunched up in disgust. Amelia wanted to tell Lily about James and hers unfortunate accident (that what was she was calling snogging) but it didn't seem like the right time or place, and it also helped that she didn't want to say or admit it either. "Well, I know how you feel about him, but I…like him, so you're just going to have to deal with it, okay?" No one said anything, everyone continued eating their food, and Mary ate another bowl of ice cream. Amelia pulled the not from Peter out of her pocket, unfolding it and making sure no-one was reading over her shoulder.

'_You can't ignore me forever, Bones.'_

Can so.

* * *

_Fifteen Hours Later._

"You right Moony?" Sirius asked for the third time in a row, sitting on the same bed as his friend, Remus Lupin's face buried in his pillow, mumbling something about how he was an asshole, and that he sucked, and that his head hurt, and that Padfoot should really leave him alone now. But Sirius did no such thing, in fact he pulled out his wand and jabbed Remus in the leg, sending an electric shock through the werewolf's system. Moony say up straight, his eyes bloodshot as they always were on the day after, scowling at the other, "Look, I think you've gone mental, firstly, you haven't eaten any food, secondly, and most importantly, you didn't say 'I love you back' to Isaac? She's fucking fine, my good friend, and any other man than you would have said it back and you would be having the time of your life instead of grumbling about here."

"…Didn't you break up with Mary, because she said she loved you?" Remus quirked an eyebrow, and the other's expression darkened slightly, "I'm not going to tell a girl I love her if I don't. I'm not going to tell a girl I love her period. Haven't we gone through this before? Lauren's a lovely girl, but I'm not going to put her in harm's way by dating her. Even with Wolfsbane Potion, I'm still dangerous, okay?" This was the fifteenth time Moony had had to explain to Padfoot this point. And the fifteenth time Sirius had denied it, and it ignored it.

"You sound like bloody Amelia, Remus, listen, have you seen Lauren? Like Lauren's body, seriously, I mean, James and I have-." James, on the other side of the room, interrupted with a mumbled _'No I haven't'_ "In the change rooms after Quidditch, girls like that mate, girls like that are hard to come by. Absolutely smoking hot, nice and sweet too. Plus, she's already there, she already likes you, maybe even loves you. Have I mentioned how good her body is? Seriously, it's amazing man, like honestly." It should be pointed out that Sirius was a little bit tipsy right now, he hadn't been handling his and Mary's break-up as well as you would expect. "And me and Mary, we fit together, but we don't. Like yeah, we're good together, she's hot, I'm me, and we work. Most of the time. But when we don't, it's just, just, you know?" '_No, we don't.' _James butted in again. "We can't have anything more than…sex. Mind you that bird is amazing in the bedroom." '_We know, we've been here during those special times of yours' _"One day she's gonna find a bloke she can be in a real relationship with, not like the ones she's had with me. Mary's great, hey, she's fucking amazing, but we're not meant to be together. Also, you know Louise…Louise…Louise in Hufflepuff…or was it…Gryffindor?" It was actually neither, the girl Sirius was trying to recall was Louise Settler, who was a Ravenclaw sixth year with long black hair and pale skin, "Louise was in the Great Hall, lookin' nice and attractive and all, so I go sit next to her, and I pull the pity act, and she goes all sweet and asks me on a date for Hogsmeade." Louise actually didn't, her friend, Sarah did, but Sirius' roommates were enjoying this far too much to aware him to this fact. "James, get that look off your face, I'm not a git."

"He's really not…" Peter squeaked, looking up from his Astronomy homework, "I mean, when I was in the Great Hall, I overheard R-Rachel talking, and Mary was there, and she looked upset, and was eating all the ice-cream, and then Rachel said she was going to set her up on some sort of date…And James…I gave Amelia the thing you told me to give her." James nodded some sort of thank you, but hinting at that the rest of the room didn't need to know, before he went back to what he was doing. Drawing. He was actually quite good at it. What he drew? People. And right now, he was drawing Amelia. Usually, he drew Lily, as Lily was what was on his mind when the pencil touched the paper. What was more amazing is that he drew them from memory. If you got a time turner and went back to two days ago, you would have seen this exact moment, this exact look on her face, the exact smile, the exact sunbeam dancing across her face, the exact rosiness on her cheeks. If she thought she would be unhappy forever, he could show her this. And then she'd remember that she could in fact be happy. With him. Wait, not with him. She could be happy. And he could make her happy. But she had said…she hadn't said anything. Apart from a strangled 'no'.

"Why does she look happy? She never smiles like that, not around me, anyway." Sirius said, now standing over his other friend, a bottle of firewhiskey in his hand, the other pulled the book out of James' hand. "Don't you usually draw the…other...redhead? The one…The tall one…Does she have clothes on?" James pulled a face, nodding furiously; he hadn't actually got to drawing below her neck yet, as he had spent a lot of time on her hair, and her eyes, and every little detail on her face. "Wait…Why are you drawing her in the first place? Spill the beans Prongs." Sirius jumped onto the stag's bed, followed by Remus who raised an eyebrow at his friend, taking the book out of Padfoot's hand and flicking through the first couple pages, before he looked up at James, a small smirk on his face, three words dancing on the tip of his tongue.

"I knew it!" Remus grinned, his demeanour suddenly more cheerful, scanning the face of the person in front of him. "Wait…you like Amelia Bones. Our Amelia? The one that thinks love is stupid? The one who calls you an idiot every other second? The Amelia who sleeps a lot? That Amelia? Prongs, you're screwed!" Moony tried not to laugh, Amelia was a sweet girl, he thought, and she didn't give him good advice (which he hadn't followed yet), but the idea of pessimistic her and optimistic James? Together? It would work. Or it would be living hell. There was no denying there wasn't chemistry, but James had chemistry with a fork. Amelia was like a match (no references to her bright hair) needed a spark to be set alight. Not that she needed to be set alight. Or anything of the like. "Wait…What aren't you telling us?"

"They kissed," the new arrival at the door announced. Eloise Finch, who, with the help of an overly sweet third year (who she had bit) had managed to get into the Gryffindor Common Room, followed by the Boys' Dormitories, then sit on Sirius' bed. Hissing slightly at Peter who scampered off the other side of the room, she took a deep breath (that sounded oddly like a meow), continuing to inform the rest of them. "You really didn't know? Blimey, it's all over Amelia's face. And his, actually." She pointed at the bespectacled lad in front of her. "He's not denying it, when I pressed the issue with her she shut me down completely, mind you she was falling asleep in her bed and she just mumbled something like 'Mmmmnaaayahhh', anyways, I've known her for six years, and I know when there's something she's not telling me. Also, she smells like James. Have you noticed that Remmy?" That was Eloise's pet nickname for Remus, and he just shrugged, leaning over to sniff his friend, before James pushed him away, Remus nodded in agreement, "Caramel? Orange? Bitterness?" Remus nodded at the all three (and Sirius laughed at the last one), "Mixed with grass, caffeine and lemon? That's you by the way, James." Prongs sniffed under his arm pits, not a very wise move, he had had Quidditch training an hour earlier, and decided to skip the shower, so it was a bit whiffy to say the least.

"I don't…smell that." He shook his head slowly; pinching his nose slightly, catching a glimpse of a look Remus and Eloise were sharing, narrowing his eyebrows in confusion, deciding the change the subject off his body odour, also, to clear the air, figuratively speaking. "Um, so, I like her. But that doesn't mean anything. I like Lupin here. But I haven't snogged him, have I? Not when I was sober anyway…" his words met silence, Eloise's head was tilted in confusion, Peter's was looking back and forth trying to figure out what, Sirius by now had passed out and was snoring softly behind Remus. William Knight, one of the two other people who slept in the Marauder's dorm walked in, and went straight into the bathroom, as if he'd been busting for quite a while. "I really am screwed, am I?" everyone in the room nodded, even William, who had little idea about what the conversation was about, as he walked towards his bed and grabbed his jumper, giving the lot a smile before walking out. "For Merlin's sake, we sound like a bunch of ruddy girls. No offence Eloise, let's get hammered, shall we?"

* * *

_I'm not saying it was your fault, although you could have done more…_

Sirius Black had noticed something. And why he pretended he was oblivious that happened to everything that happened in the classroom, he did notice this. He'd been in Magical Theory, an extra-curricular subject McGonagall had made the Marauders do as some sort of punishment for blowing up a classroom in their fifth year. Sirius couldn't skip, like the other three did, as he had last period with a 'lovely' Ravenclaw girl who would drag him here. She was pretty sure, and they snogged for an entire lesson once, but like with everything, he got bored. Also, he got back with Mary the day after. Amelia did it because she wanted to get the marks she was lacking in Charms, and sometimes, she would sit next to him, and they would talk, and muck about, and exactly seven minutes later, they would be kicked out. She wasn't today, no matter how many things he threw at her, or how much he offered to pay her. Today was different. Someone frightfully familiar was sitting next to her. The pair in front of him was oddly quiet. Katie, who was on the other side of Amelia, was sent to sit with him, as she kept using her wand to set fire to the worksheet they were assigned. The two talked, and laughed. Katie was quite pleasant company, when he thought about it. He yelled out the redhead's name again, and she just turned around, giving him her supreme bitch face, going back to her work. Then he noticed something. The person beside her. No wonder he looked so familiar.

Regulus Black.

His brother.

And did Regulus Black, his brother, who he thought hated mudbloods, and blood-traitors, was sitting next to her. And they were talking. And fuck, did Regulus Black just smile?

He'd been thinking a lot. Over the past day. It didn't seem right. No. She was meant to be with James (if Lily was with Sir Git) and he was meant to be away from her. He wasn't meant to smile at her. He was meant to stay away from her and be hexed by her. Regulus Black wasn't allowed to be near her. It didn't work. And Sirius Black was going to make him stay away. He might have been his brother but there was no lost love there. Not on his side (maybe there was the tiniest bit, but he wasn't going to admit it). So, he waited outside his brother's Potions classroom, resting his back against the wall, wondering what kind of hex he would have to use to make his brother listen, if his brother would listen at all. All of the ones he could think of were too nice…Maybe a stunning curse would do the trick, but he'd prefer it left some sort of physical mark. He decided he'd make it up on the spot, actually.

A group of Hufflepuff's literally ran out of the classroom, several of them crying, one of them nursing their arm close to their chest, and Sirius stood up, poking his head in the doorway, the class hadn't finished, but Slughorn was standing at the front, looking as tired as ever, and slightly angry. The professor sighed, cleaning up some of the mess on his desk, making sure it didn't affect his prized photographs of the Slug Club. Or a bunch of people, and Lily, who was standing right in the middle of the photo, or it was cropped to make her the highlight of the picture. He looked around, Amelia's hair was successfully frazzled, and Regulus, along with a large bunch of Slytherin twats, were sitting at the back, and if Sirius didn't know any better, the look on his brother's face would be a one of worry, which was weird, as everyone else in his little posse had a look of pride on their faces. "Not again, please. Just, just, twe-ten points from Slytherin. Next time, it'll be fifty. Okay? Class dismissed." Everyone grumbled and stood up, heading towards the door. Amelia just raised an eyebrow at Sirius but pushed past him.

"Brother dearest," he said in a sickly sweet voice, the fakest of smiles plastered on and Regulus stopped, partly in shock and partly in surprise, the last words his brother had said to him, was the day he ran away, Regulus knew he was leaving of course, he'd seen him pack, and he'd begged him to stay, but it was no use. Once Sirius' mind was made it was made. No changes possible whatsoever. And Regulus wished he could change his mind about his future, in fact, he actually had changed his mind, but he couldn't do anything about his new way of mind. "We need to have a little chat." The elder dragged the younger down the hallways, tightly around corners and up flights of stairs, Sirius 'accidently' bumping Regulus into walls and forcefully made him trip up stairs. "Leave her alone." He growled, coming to an abandoned classroom, pushing his brother against the wall.

"I don't know what you're talking about." Regulus lied easily; he did know what his brother was talking about. The redhead he had…feelings…for. He never had feelings, not ones like those. But, of course his brother didn't take it, Sirius just pushing him harder against the wall, the Gryffindor's wand pressing against his neck; he subconsciously wrapped his own fingers around his wand, he wasn't going to hex his brother, but what he could do, a shield charm, that would force him back. "Geez, Sirius, what's up with you?" he said, sarcasm dripping from his tone, but all of it fake, there were some fifth years from his house watching them, and he had to pretend, he had a reputation, and as much as he hated it, it was better be known as a Pureblood rather than a Blood Traitor, and it was better stay known as a Pureblood rather than a Pureblood turned Blood Traitor. Sirius raised an eyebrow, his wand pressing even harder against his younger brother's neck, his arm pressing against his neck hard, and he gasped for breath.

"Stop fucking with her brain. Leave her alone, Bones, don't fuck with her mind, don't smile at her and don't make her laugh, understood. You can…You can fuck with anyone in this castle, anyone but her. Stop playing whatever sick twisted game you're playing, stop trying to make her feel things for you, and I know she is, she's smiling, and she never, ever, smiles like that. Not recently. And…you know what? My best friend likes her." Sirius paused, James did confess to liking her right? He was smashed when he said it so he wasn't really sure, but the Gryffindor came up with a few quick lies to make sure all of Regulus' intentions died. "Her and James are dating, like serious dating, they shag every night, all night. If you touch her you'll have the grand Potter fury released on you, imagine every step you step hexing you in every way possible. Then, then, you'll have to deal with me. Leave her alone. Or you'll get hell from Potter. And me too. Understood?"

"Why would I want to touch a filthy mudblood like her?" he muttered, his own words making him hate himself just a little more, but he didn't have to punish himself for this, as Sirius' hex made him fall to the floor, his skin swelling up into red, pussy blisters, gagging on his swollen tongue. "Sir-us, wait…" he coughed, pulling his wand out to mutter the basic healing spell, most of the swelling going down on his skin turning back to normal. "Sirius, wait." He croaked, and the Gryffindor turned around slowly, meting eyes with his brother, the first time he'd seen his younger sibling with a loss of power, he saw weakness in his brother's eyes. Regulus looked up, if what his brother said were true, if she and…Potter were…then what was he meant to do? Just go on? Abandon the first feelings he's ever had for someone? But, like all the stories said, though Regulus Black had long since given up on fairy tales, if you want someone to be happy, you have to let them be.

"Is she…Is she happy?"

* * *

"This dress makes me look like I'm pregnant." Mary complained, turning around in front of the mirror once more before turning to her friends, Lily who was half pay attention half taking notes for Potions, Rachel, who was stitching up the side of one of the abandoned dresses where the side at spilt, Lauren, being Lauren, was paying full attention to her friend, and Amelia,. Amelia was dozing softly in the bed behind everyone, not really interested in dresses or make-up, also she was bugger tired, so with Lily's permission, she'd fallen asleep in the Gryffindor Seventh Year dorms, Katie, wasn't invited as she had Ravenclaw Quidditch training (also she would complain the whole time) and Eloise, no-one was quite sure where Eloise was. "You guys, you're supposed to be helping me! How am I supposed to make Sirius jealous if I look horrible?"

"You look lovely." Rachel smile sympathetically, putting down her needle and thread, the dress now fixed and ready to sit through Mary's testing. "You don't look horrible, or pregnant. Not sure about that colour though...Pale yellow doesn't suit your hair, or your eyes, unless we tie your hair back and heavy make-up. How about that lovely little black number you tried on earlier? I know Lily said it looked strange, but with a little customizing, it'll be perfect. Plus, you can't have enough little black dresses right?" Mary rolled her eyes, as she took the linen yellow dress off and put her pyjamas on, sitting on the bed with all her friends. Picking up the dress in question and handing it to Rachel, who pulled out her wand, and started to wave it around, "We'll shorten it a little, to show those fantastic legs of yours," Mary blushed at this, running a hand through her flaxen hair. "Lower the back, get rid of these horrid sleeves, fix the colour of the fabric so it doesn't look like dirt, and we're done." Mary looked in amazement at what seemed like a completely new thing, Rachel just smiled, and continued to give the other girl instructions, "Basic make –up, your usual date stuff, make it look as natural as possible, apart from rosy red lips, stockings would make a good touch, a nice cardigan if it's a bit cold, or get the bloke to give you his jacket, and we're done. Sirius Black won't know what he's missing…Or he will, he'll notice in a sudden change of faith and be begging for your forgiveness."

"Oh, thank you so much Rachel, you're a lifesaver, seriously." Mary grinned, hugging her friend, turning to the rest of the group (minus Amelia, who was still sleeping), Mary adored gossip, and it was a Hogsmeade weekend coming up, that meant romances and dates and everything that she loved talking about. And the best bit, in her eyes, was that Amelia was currently asleep so she wouldn't have to deal with any snide comments. "What's everyone doing tomorrow?" she exclaimed in an excited voice, much too overly excited. "Can't you tell me who you're stepping me up with?" _Oops. _Maybe, maybe someone, someone being everyone, forgot that for a date, you need to have two people. Lily gave a look to the others, trying to figure out what to do, had they actually agreed to set her up on date? Plus, Mary's standards were ridiculously high, maybe apart from Sirius, so it was either someone who was ridiculously good looking, with a killer personality, also maybe a movie star, she had said multiple times she wanted to bang James Dean. Behind them, Amelia turned over, snoring softly, she'd learnt to sleep through anything, being a sixteen year old in a boarding school with hormones going crazy. It was actually quite a helpful skill to have.

"…Amelia's organized it." Lily piped up, and Rachel let out a large sigh of relief, muttering a 'thank you' under her breath to the awake redhead, who returned to with a smile. Bless friends, who spend all night studying and have to collapse during the day, but Amelia wasn't exactly studying, more likely thinking, or, yeah she was thinking, but she used the excuse of staying up all night studying to get some teachers to let her sleep in class. Some teachers. As in Professor Binns who didn't notice and Slughorn so she didn't blow anything up. Unless she had help from someone. "Yeah, she's keeping it a massive secret." Almost on cue, the sleeping girl snored loudly, turning around in her bed again, such a restless sleeper. Mary raised an eyebrow, about to say something but Lily intervened. "Don't worry, too much, Amelia has good taste, and I'm sure whoever she's set you up with is seriously good looking, she knows you-"

BANG!

"WHAT IN FUCK'S SAKE WAS THAT?" A very sleepy (and a very angry) Amelia Bones woke up with start, sitting up in her bed and looking for the destroyer of her sleep. It so happened, that an owl, not a particularly bright one at that, had flown into the window with such force. Lauren got up, laughing, and opened the window, picking up the unconscious bird and placing it on someone's bed, pulling the letter out of the brown owl's claws, a scribbled _To Lauren _on the envelope, the ever neat scrawl of Remus Lupin, with what look like drips of firewhiskey staining the paper. Some sort of squeal left Lauren's lips, and the room got up (minus Amelia who had rolled out of bed and landed face first on the floor and was having a lot of trouble getting up), all who crowded around the brunette, as she started to read then letter aloud.

_Dear Lauren.  
Hi. I wanted to say sorry for being a git, and running away on you like that, it was something Sirius would do, _(Mary grumbled at this) _and it was an utterly stupid thing to do to you. You're really awesome Lauren, and you deserve better than a guy who runs away when you talk to him. But I talked to Amelia (thank her for me), James and Sirius, and they all confirmed what I did was really stupid. So, this is an apology for being a total git face, and I hope you forgive me.  
I was also wondering if tomorrow, you would like to go on a date…with me. In Hogsmeade. If so, how does The Three Broomsticks sound? At about eleven o'clock? Unless, of course, you never want to talk to me again, which I perfectly understand, could you please reply or get someone to tell me so?  
I hope you can forgive me.  
Remus._

_PS. Tell Amelia that James wants to 'talk'._

"Oh my fucking Merlin." Lauren breathed, as she finished the letter, and she started to jump up down, and started to scream, running over to Amelia and pulling her up onto her feet, wrapping her up in a massive hug. "Thank you! THANK YOU! _THANK YOU!_" Amelia tried not to wince as her friend screamed in her ear, but she hugged the girl back, giving her a smile. Lauren was _happy_, Amelia thought, _that's nice, but, then again, isn't she always happy? So she's happier? That's nice. _She wasn't sure if her brain was soaking the 'that's nice' in sarcasm or was it just her? But then she noticed something, Rachel had left. Which was very un-Rachel of her? Rachel and Lauren had been best friends for seven years. Wouldn't Rachel be there to celebrate the basic announcement of her best friend finally getting with the boy she's had a crush on since third year? Lauren went to scream with Mary and Lily, so Amelia, knowing her absence wouldn't be noticed, nor cared about, slipped out to find Rachel. This wasn't that hard, as she was standing outside the dorm, had in her hands.

"What's up Rach?" she asked, standing next to the blonde, her long blonde hair was done up neatly, perfect eye makeup, just generally perfect, though she did slightly look like a tart, it was because it was late in the afternoon, and she'd smudged it slightly wiping her face. "You've been acting…funny. And I'm a little worried…" Rachel laughed softly at this, smiling softly at her, slightly grateful for the redhead being so observant, which was strange, for her, as she was expecting the other redhead (Lily) to notice (Lily did notice, but when she saw Amelia go to talk to Rachel, she decided that maybe Amelia's line of questioning would be better than her own).

"It won't work." The blonde mumbled, facing the redhead, "Lupin and Lauren…Won't work…" she shook her head and Amelia raised an eyebrow, "She doesn't love him, I know her, and she doesn't love him. She's in lust with him. Not sure why, he's not even that good looking is he?" the other girl paused, not sure what to say (or if to agree/disagree, or whether to be truthful or to say what Rachel would want to hear). "She shouldn't be with him, she should be with…" the girl trailed off and started to walk away, leaving Amelia in a state of confusion. That was quite common, but it was never Rachel who left her like that.

"With…?" she called out after the blonde haired girl, who just kept walking, turning into the boy's dormitories. "Bloody hell."

* * *

"Bloody hell." Amelia muttered, running down the corridors to the Hufflepuff Common Room, trying to find someone, anyone, who fit Mary's expectations, and who wasn't a total git as well. Easier said than done. Not tall enough, nose too small, too tall, hair too long, as a girlfriend, probably gay, a teacher, not handsome enough, too young, a total dickhead. She gave a great sigh, "Mary bloody McDonald why do you have to have such bloody high standards?" she muttered aloud, "Though, I suppose, like I can talk." A Slytherin fourth year walked past her, giving her a look as if she was insane, and she shrugged it off, she was quite used to being called insane actually.

"Amelia!" Bless Merlin. Edward Smith was handsome. Enough. He was tall but not overly tall, check, he had brown hair, which was messy, but not too long, check, he had brown eyes that looked sort of dreamy, check, he was nice, check, he was attractive enough and he wasn't a douche, check and mate. She grinned at her friend, though he looked tired, as if he hadn't slept, again, "I've been meaning to talk to you all week…Haven't seen you since you left…We've never gone a week without talking…And…why are you staring at me like that…and smiling?" Amelia's grin wad widened quite a bit, the words dancing on the tip of her tongue.

"Say, how do you feel about going on a date?"

* * *

_Carpe Diem (Seize The Day)_

* * *

"Hey, Potter, look at these…Potter?" Katie Rich turned around, trying to find her company for the day, because, James Potter had been acting weird, and Katelyn Rich had decided it was her personal duty to make him stop acting weird. Actually, it wasn't as noble as that, she'd seen him moping in front of the Hufflepuff Common Room and decided to drag him to Hogsmeade, and get him to buy her some stuff from Zonko's Joke Shop and/or Honeydukes, as she had lost most of the money she had playing Gobstones with some sixth years. Said James Potter was standing behind the window, craning his neck and trying to get a good look at the lane outside, seeing if he could see a particular redheaded Hufflepuff. "For fuck's sake Potter…" she grumbled, picking up a dung bombs and put them into one of the brightly coloured paper bags in the pick-your-own section, the sign for which was next to a bright blue one, with flashing lights, name to catch your eye, _20 for Six Sickles, _which actually wasn't that much of a discount, but her bag was still filled to the brim of all the little things she wanted, well, only twenty of them, if she could she would have bought the whole shop. She wondered towards him, standing next to him and trying to see what he was staring at. "There's no-one there…"

"That's the whole problem." James muttered, handing the girl a galleon and she jumped for joy, running back into the shop and grabbing whatever she could afford/find. James followed, glancing one last look back at the window before walking away, wasn't the whole point of agreeing to go with Katie to Hogsmeade was to forget about her, they hadn't talked since they kissed, and no matter what she said, she did kiss him back, actually, thinking back, she kissed him, or they kissed each other, or their lips collided or something like that. But, no matter what way you put it, they snogged, and now she was ignoring him. And James Potter didn't take well to being ignored. "Wait up…" he called out, a small smile growing on his lips, picking up a couple of fireworks. Why was he trying so hard? If it was anyone else, anyone at all, with the exception of Lily Evans (but she was out of the picture after she decided that Romeo Martin's tonsils were something she wanted to explore), he would have given up, and lost interest by now. She wasn't fascinating, no, Amelia wasn't fascinating. She was just plain out strange. Weird. Interesting. Forbidding. Insane. _Strange_. She was strange in the all the right ways, but also strange in some of the wrong ways as well. James Potter loved a challenge, in fact, he needed a challenge, or his lights went out. Impossible wasn't a word he knew.

And the best challenges were never the easy ones.

* * *

Edward Smith didn't do dates. Especially dates with pretty blondes who used to be dating Sirius Black. He didn't really want to be punched in the face. He especially didn't want to be the new target of the Marauder's inventive pranks. He just wanted to wake up in the morning, survive the day, and go back to bed that night. Whatever happened in between was meant to be tedious and boring. After all, life was tedious and boring. But, you can't always get what you want. It seemed cruel to pretend Amelia never asked him to be Mary's date. After all, Amelia would get mad at him and he didn't really want that. Then he wouldn't have a (real) friend in the world.

So there he was. Wearing his nicest clothes, a dark blue shirt and a pair of jeans, his nicest sneakers, he'd attempted to brush his hair (and failed miserably), he'd got her flowers, and after all, that was what people in movies did on dates, he thought. He wondered down to Hogsmeade, after missing the carriages trying to find flowers to pick. Ever the romantic. So here he was, trudging past all the excited third years, running around as if it was Santa's Workshop. He pushed open the door to The Three Broomsticks, looking around for the pretty blonde haired girl, before seeing her in the corner, looking slightly annoyed, and bored, He wondered over to her, coughing slightly to get her attention. "Hi, Mary, um, I got you these…" he shrugged, handing her the bunch of flowers. "I dropped them on the way here a few times, I missed the carriages so I had to walk…That's why I'm late…Sorry…That's what guys do right? Give girls' flowers?" he shrugged, laughing awkwardly, which made her smile, and blush, she took the flowers, muttering a thank you, motioning to the seat opposite her, 'Well, this is going to be interesting.'

_One and a half hours later._

"What do you mean you've never played Quidditch, Ed? What do you do with your time? Seriously!" Mary McDonald laughed again, taking another sip of her butterbeer, grinning insanely at her date. She'd thought that it would be awkward and weird, but it wasn't. The exact opposite of that. She didn't even notice Sirius and his date falling apart. "You have to play, I will make you play." She announced, "In fact, we go back to the castle we are going for a fly."

"But, I'm terrible at flying!" he countered, taking a bite of a chocolate cauldron, a massive grin on his face. "No, seriously, in first year, during flying lessons, I fell off my broom and broke my wrist, and ever since, haven't touched a broom, and have only gone to the pitch to watch the occasional game. And trust me, a lot of people have tried to make me, and none of them have been successful!" he laughed, finishing his mug and it refilling again, another notch growing on the handle (this was how Madam Rosmerta knew how many drinks you had, the limit for butterbeer was twelve, firewhiskey seven) and Ed was currently on his fifth mug of butterbeer, while Mary was halfway through her sixth. "Plus, you're all dressed up, and you look really beautiful, so…"

"Well, I've never tried, have I? And I'm sure I'll be successful. I'm always successful." She said proudly, tucking a piece of hair behind her ear, before blushing a deep red, she always called hot, pretty, smoking, fine, nice, but never, ever beautiful. And her widest smile, which was the one she was using now, made her about twice as beautiful. "You really think I'm beautiful?" she asked softly, and he nodded, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world, and she blushed even more. "Well, aren't you a lil' sweetheart? Well, come on, I'm going to teach you how to fly."

* * *

Lauren Isaac was a romantic. Remus Lupin was not. But he was trying to be. Kind of. He'd asked Lily what Lauren liked, and the simple answer was 'him'. But luckily for him, she elaborated. Kind of.

Lauren Isaac liked cheesy romantic movies. He didn't, so that was out. She liked chocolate. He didn't really fancy it (yet). She liked Liquid Spells, a wizarding band he found boring (her favourite was Levitating Love). He liked Fleetwood Mac (his favourite being Bare Trees). The only thing they had in common was that they were both in Gryffindor. And both turning seventeen this year. And if Remus Lupin didn't think of something to do it would fucking awful. Lily's suggestions involved all these heavily planned; all set out, and not organized the day before, not in a rush. Then he came up with an idea. It was going to be a reasonably warm day…So a picnic wouldn't too bad. And if it had flowers and all the things those girls, girls who believe in romance, wanted, then she would be happy. Romance was dead, though. He knew that, being friends with Sirius and James, romance was sex, sex was love, love was lust, lust was romance, and the circle continued again. Romance, Sex. Love, Lust, rinse and repeat. That was how the world worked these days. No more love. No more holding hands. Just sex and lies. But, maybe, he could trick her, as bad as that sounded, he could do it; trick her into believing that love was real. Like the old love. The one you saw between your parents (not his parents though). For a day, he could resurrect it.

"Hey, Lauren." He smiled softly at her, at the place they'd organized to meet, Gryffindor Common Room, by the fire, at exactly twenty past noon, her wearing a basic sun dress and him wearing a jumper and jeans (he almost wore his pyjamas but decided against it, as 'romance wasn't dead', not today). "Change of plans." He grinned, and she smiled back, linking arms with him. She was excited, no, she was ecstatic, but she was hiding it, not very well though. Love was all that was good, and all that the world needed. Love was friendship and love was romance. The good believed in love, and the bad didn't (Amelia was the exception, but she also wasn't purely good). Love made the world revolve. She loved Remus Lupin (she was fairly certain about this). Her heart skipped a beat when he looked at her. She blushed when he talked to her. When he smiled she smile. That was love, right? She was in love. She thought. "We're going on a picnic." He announced, slightly proud of himself that he thought of this idea, and she grinned even more than before.

Neither had any idea what was going to happen next.

* * *

"Look I'm sorry…Amanda…" Sirius half sighed half yelled at his so called date, whose name he'd long since forgotten, but was desperately trying to remember, he was sure it started with an A…or an S…or a P…or a… "Hey, just tell me your name-where're you going?" he asked in a defeated tone, watching his date walk out of The Three Broomsticks. Oh, well…They did snog for a good twenty minutes, before he called her by the wrong name; this was why he called all his dates 'love' or 'sweetheart'. Impersonal, but effective with having sex. He ran a hand through his messy hair, slumping back into the booth and drinking the rest of his dates butterbeer, his had long since been finished, deciding that he might as well eat the food she had ordered, he was paying for this after all, trying to avoid the laughter coming from the booth coming from the other side of the room. Mary and…her date. Some Ravenclaw he'd seen around. How did that bookworm fit into her standards? The sod didn't look anything like he did. But he was making her laugh, and smile, without getting undressed. And he, Sirius Black, was left alone in the corner, and suddenly butterbeer wasn't alcoholic enough. He wondered over to the bar, giving his best charming smile to Madam Rosmerta, who indecently at the same moment, shot him down.

"What happening to your date, Black?" the elder witched inquired, as she cleaned another mug, setting it on the shelf behind her. Sirius shrugged lightly, looking over both off his shoulders, maybe, he had some chance of picking another date up, after all he couldn't let Mary and that git win, right? Putting two sickles on the table, he gave another one of his most flattering smiles to the barkeeper, who just smiled softly back. "I'm not giving you a firewhiskey, Black." He ignored her, moving down a few seats to sit next to the redhead who was drinking what looked like…firewhiskey…and whose face greatly resembled one Amelia Bones, the same Bones, who was ignoring/avoiding his best friend, and the same one that had been hanging around his little (git of a) brother. He pointed at Amelia's drink, who just smiled up at him, and Madam Rosmerta simply said. "I trust her, I don't, however, trust you."

"My darling Rosmerta!" Sirius exclaimed, fake grasping his chest, as if his heart was breaking, "How will our budding romance ever survive? I have been nothing but loyal and true to you and this is how you repay me? Woe, woe, my heart is shattering into a million little pieces, how will I go on with this terrible pain in my chest? My one true love…My heart, my heart…." He acted out, making the bartender just shake her head and go to serve a waiting couple, leaving Amelia and Sirius by themselves, he straightened up, fixing the collar ion his shirt, "I've been meaning to talk to you about a couple things 'Melia my dear," he announced, taking a sip of his butterbeer, "Firstly, James Potter, what's going on there? Secondly, why the fuck are you talking to my little brother? And lastly, how on earth did you get Madam Rosmerta to trust you?"

"James…James and I…there's…I don't know…" Which was basically Amelia speak for I do know, but it's not fucking likely I will tell you, but Sirius knew this, and this was the reaction he was hoping for, which basically meant yes, there was something, and that she obviously felt something for James, and if his best friend felt something for a girl who actually felt something back, he was automatically happy. "Your brother…? I don't know what you're talking about…" she gave him a confused looked, her eyebrow furrowing in confusion, Regulus…Black…was a tall, well-built young man, with bright blue eyes that were at the same time, stormy and mysterious, a feature that differed from his brother, who had his mother's trademark dark brown irises, he had messy black hair, that looked as if someone ran their fingers through his hair constantly, he had a small smile, which she had only seen a couple of times, which made him seem like something from another world. Something completely unreal. And, indeed, Regulus Black was the mysterious stranger. Her mysterious stranger. He was warm and soft, or so she assumed. But, Regulus Black was also the one who pushed her into a ditch, who knocked her out, and knocked her over, who sat with her when she slept, and while she had a nightmare he sat by her when all her friends left. Now she had a name to face and she had no idea if she lov-liked him or hated him. He hurt her then comforted her. He seemed to be playing some game with her mind (and her heart). "Your brother was the one sitting next to me in Magical Theory…" Sirius nodded, looking at Amelia's wide eyed expression, if she had some great realization. "I didn't know he was…he just said a joke, and it was funny, so I laughed." She shrugged slightly, and Sirius nodded, slightly relived, he wasn't sure what his brother had called out after him, but he knew it was about her, and he hoped it wasn't what he thought it was, but at least there was nothing mutual in between them, but, why did his brother smile like that…? He'd only seen his brother smile like that once before, when he got his first broom when they were little kids… "And, to answer your last question, Madam Rosmerta trusts me because I don't have sex with people in the toilets." She laughed, giving him a large smile.

"Lia, Padfoot." A gruff voice from behind them announced himself, "And I, for one, have never shagged someone in the toilet here." He said loudly, catching the bartender's eye, James Potter, had come here with one sole purpose, to get Amelia Bones to talk to him (and possibly, if that worked, snog her, and if that worked, get her to date him). "Beloved Rosmerta, I have missed you so dearly, to look upon your face again is to look upon heaven itself." He smiled down at Amelia, which made her smile softly back, and taking a hint, Sirius walked off to talk to another girl, Madame Rosmerta just walked off, shaking her head, muttering 'bloody Potter' under her breath, "How will I ever recover? My heart! My heart! Amelia Bones, my heart is shattered!" he said, trying not to laugh, wrapping his arm around her waist, and she grinned up at him (so maybe she did have a crush on him, he was being ridiculously adorable after all), he sat in the seat next to her, leaning over to kiss her forehead, and she giggled (something she never did), handing him the remains of her firewhiskey, which he happily accepted.

"So Amelia Bones, how have you been?"

* * *

He saw it.

He saw her.

Her & him.

Amelia Bones & James Potter.

It was meant to be him.

Not the blood traitor.

Him.

Though wanting to be with her made him a blood traitor, but he didn't care anymore.

She was meant to be his.

But there she was.

Smiling at the blood traitor.

His arm wrapped around her waist and kissed her forehead.

And her smile.

That bloody fucking smile.

And for the first time, he wished for her death.

He wished he could fire a spell and watch her crumble to the floor.

Hearing her scream harshly out in pain.

That he had actually killed her when he pushed her down that ditch.

He could have so easily done it. She had trusted him. And he could have killed her. He should have killed her.

Maybe then, he could rid himself of her poison. Her stupid mudblood poison would be gone from his veins and set him free.

All the things he'd heard his cousin say. His friends say. He'd never found any meaning in them till now.

The world would be so much better without them. Without the dirty blood and the traitorous blood.

His world would be so much better without her.

Running towards The Hogs Head, knowing there was a gathering there. Of people his new found ways. Of people who would help him get rid of the disease.

Of her.

Walking into the almost abandoned pub, a group of people huddled in the corner, the same people who'd given him a tempting offer earlier this week, were whispering in a soft voice, and they all turned to face him, his cousin with a twisted smirk on her face.

"I'm in."

* * *

_AN: Wow that was long, I'm sorry...But I had a lot to put in this chapter, I should have divided it into two but..._  
_I have to admit I did cry a few times writing this chapter (it also made me change my tumblr url to regblacks)_  
_I hope you enjoyed it!_  
_Reviews mean...people won't die._  
_I promise more Eloise & Rachel in the next chapter, along with some Wormtail!_  
_Love always,_  
_Alice._


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